


three of a kind

by astroblemish



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Baseball, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 19:15:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10577772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astroblemish/pseuds/astroblemish
Summary: Baseball comes with rules and regulations for Minseok to follow; loving two people at once does not.





	1. strike one

**Author's Note:**

> I didnt want to write this. i Literally titled the doc ‘i dont want this’ yet still, exo in baseball uniforms changes a man….......  
> this is messy but i dont want to look at it anymore, so just Take It,

* * *

 

It’s the sort of thing that happens in a roundabout sort of way; one second, Minseok is practicing his fastballs --left corner, right corner, centre-- right into Yixing’s mitt, and the next, there’s a boy with his fingers through the chain links of the cage and a grin on his face, animalistic.

“Who’s the new kid?” Minseok asks, slapping Junmyeon’s elbow with his mitt and pointing across the field, to where the boy stands chatting with their manager, Qian, still grinning manically out at the diamond.

“Scouted from Bucheon, I think?” Junmyeon answers, frowning at the water bottle someone must have put on top of his bag and gingerly removing it as if it’s contaminated, pinching it only with the tips of his fingers. “Byun Baekhyun. I’ve heard he’s good.”

“We’re all good,” Chanyeol inputs, and picks up the water bottle Junmyeon had carefully removed, guzzling from it greedily as Junmyeon gives him a particularly pinched look. He gasps, refreshed. “That’s sort of the point?”

“Well, I mean  _really_ good,” Junmyeon counters, and tugs at Chanyeol’s ear, causing the latter to cry out in pain. “As in challenge-me-for-my-position good.”

And _that_ has Minseok’s eyes widening, face falling forward as the words churn through --because it’s one thing to replace their already beyond-functional ace, but another entirely to take Junmyeon’s position from him before he’s even debuted on the field.

“You don’t seem too upset about that,” Yixing adds, pulling the catcher’s mask from his face and brushing his matted hair back with his fingers. As per usual, Minseok stares at the careless way that Yixing wipes the sweat from his face, and the careful curve of his throat as he chugs down water before catching himself, tearing his eyes away.

Junmyeon shrugs with a stiff air of nonchalance, slinging his bag across his shoulder. “Being the ace is exhausting,” he admits, carefully stretching out his wrist. “And although I’m not ready to give it up quite yet…” Junmyeon bites his cheek, contemplative. “I wouldn’t mind a break.”

Minseok blinks back his surprise, carefully stilling his face, and glances from the bullpen to the edge of the field, where Baekhyun still stands, watching him right back. It sends uncomfortable shivers down Minseok’s spine, and he pulls his cap just that little bit lower, trying to understand how some scrawny kid with a too-big grin and shoddily dyed brown hair is meant to fill out the space of Junmyeon’s number 1.

“What do you think about him?” Yixing asks, later, when they’re walking out the gates and back to the dorms, Minseok’s fingers running along the edge of his bag’s strap. “The new kid, I mean.”

Minseok snorts. “I haven’t even met him,” and carefully flicks his eyes up to catch the way Yixing hums, contemplative, squinting just slightly. “And I haven’t seen him play, either.”

“But you’re usually a good judge of character,” he adds, nudging Minseok’s shoulder encouragingly.

“‘Usually’,” Minseok repeats, scoffing, and frowns at the ground as he scuffs his sneakers into it, cleats clicking together from where they hang off his bag. Truth be told, Minseok is _not_ a good judge of character, but that’s mutually exclusive to the fact that he doesn’t know what to do about Byun Baekhyun and the way his eyes had bored holes that matched the spaces of the chainlink fence his fingers had been pressed between, white-knuckled.

“I guess only time will tell,” Yixing comments, with an air of faux wisdom. Minseok rolls his eyes, snickering, and digs his elbow into Yixing’s side, laughing as he cries out suddenly in pain, ignoring the warmth that seeps through the tip of his own arm and across it, nestling somewhere between his heart and his teeth.

 

 

⚾

 

 

Before Junmyeon was ace and captain and Kris had been in his place, the line-up had always been Han, Yixing, Minseok.

On the field or off, it had always been the same. One-two-three, Han, Yixing, Minseok. Eating together, studying together, training together, or playing together, it was always the same without fault, a simple _waltz_ to a three-three rhythm that kept their tapping feet in time.

And then, as quickly as he’d sat himself into their lives and made himself a permanent fixture, Han had left, returned back home to Beijing and not even under the pretense of baseball. They still text --Minseok, Han, and Yixing, that is-- obviously, and video call when they can find the rare time between practices, but it’s not the same as it had once been, and Han’s presence had left a very evident, gaping hole in the team that Kyungsoo’s tiny body just couldn’t quite fill.

Because although Kyungsoo makes the role of leadoff hitter look _simple_ , stealing second base almost every single game through some sort of combination of magic and a pure, refined, baseball science, he’s no pitcher, and the roster switch from Jongin on first base to the mound isn’t _quite_ enough to give them an edge in the upcoming championships.

Yonsei needs fresh talent, and they need it fast, they need--

“Byun Baekhyun,” Baekhyun introduces, smiling that same too wide grin from the other day as he bows. “Nice to meet you.”

There’s a sort of thrum of acknowledgement that passes through the locker room before it falls to the floor and dies, Baekhyun’s presence in the team nothing but a single flicker of a candle in a room full of blinding light. Qian’s been trying to fill out the roster ever since Han, Zitao, and Kris had left, but she’s never quite found anyone who meshed well enough to give them the upper-hand they’re in dire need of. Yonsei’s baseball team has been chewing through second-string players like bad flavoured gum, and they always come out a little too indented and twisted on the other side once they’ve been spat out. First string is only for the best of the best, as Chanyeol is fond of reminding anyone with at least one working ear, but being the best of the best means _only_ the best and second-tier players just don’t quite fit the precise cut they’re all made to match on demand.

Baekhyun doesn’t have a jersey, which is good news for them and bad news for Baekhyun, because it makes his spot on the team significantly impermanent at this current point in time. Minseok hisses out a tiny sigh of relief, and finds a strange sort of comfort in the fact that Junmyeon will be keeping the one along his back, at least for now.

Jinki goes over the usual regimens and strategies once they make it out to the field, and they break into their assigned segments, moving through warm-ups and drills for the rest of the afternoon. By the time the sun has long since set, practice is over, and Minseok carefully stretches out his wrist while Jongdae begins complaining about how he’s so sore he’s pretty sure his grandchildren are going to feel it.

The walk back to the dorms is as filled with as much ruckus as you’d expect from twenty or so baseball players, eagerly flooding the cafeteria after a long day of practice. Through it all, however, Minseok can’t help but watch Baekhyun, trying to gain a footing on what he’s like as he sticks to the back of the group, quiet, simply watching. The black of his t-shirt and lack of a blue jersey makes him blend into the night just that bit further, but when Baekhyun catches Minseok watching him, he grins.

“So what are your positions?” Baekhyun asks, settling into the spot beside Minseok and pressing them thigh-to-thigh as he dumps his tray down on the table, Minseok resisting the urge to squirm. Baekhyun looks at Junmyeon expectantly.

“Ace,” Junmyeon says, almost carefully, and Baekhyun’s impossibly placid face gives nothing away; no determination or scorn or admiration, just simple acknowledgement. “And eighth batter.”

“Second base and leadoff,” Kyungsoo answers, when Baekhyun turns to him next.

“And I’m second-batter and catcher,” Yixing explains, around a mouthful of rice, using his chopsticks to gesture to beside him. “Minseok-hyung’s my pitcher.”

Baekhyun’s lips twitch, a slow curve upwards. “Is that an innuendo or your actual positions?”

Minseok rolls his eyes while Yixing just laughs good-naturedly, something in Baekhyun’s gaze seeming to snag on the edge of Minseok’s existence as his eyes hood over, half-lidded, staring straight through him.

“Both, maybe?” He continues, voice a smooth purr maybe only low enough for Minseok to hear, and Minseok huffs to cover up the goosebumps that race along his skin, the quiet voice in the corner of his mind that whisper _don’t I wish_ \--

“I’m only _a_ pitcher,” Minseok corrects, scolding Yixing by digging his elbow into his side and ignoring his residing yelp. “And third batter. Stop treating me like your possession.”

“But we have such great chemistry!” Yixing argues, and Minseok almost wants to tell him that no, Yixing, that’s _not_ how that term works, in Korean, but he knows the results would be fruitless all the same.

“It’s true,” Junmyeon inputs, causing Baekhyun to startle, somehow, Minseok’s lips twitching at the way Baekhyun’s composure breaks for a fraction of a second before settling over his body again, like a protective outer-shell. “These two are Yonsei’s special home-grown shadow duo-aces.” Baekhyun catches Minseok’s eyes, and something shifts, tangible in the air between them, although Minseok can’t tell what. “A regular two-of-a-kind.”

“Interesting,” Baekhyun says, and his eyes sparkle with something Minseok can’t put his finger on as he looks towards Yixing. “So what? You’re one of those pitcher-catcher pairs that communicate telepathically like in anime and shit?”

Minseok snorts, and Yixing grins before saying, “Yeah, basically.” Minseok idly wonders if Baekhyun is the all-baseball consumerist type like the rest of them, and then figures he probably wouldn’t have been scouted onto first string if he wasn’t.

“And what are you?” Kyungsoo asks, regarding Baekhyun carefully. It’s not that Kyungsoo is known for being the most open, huggable person on the team, but still his prickliness surprises Minseok, how wary he is of the other player.

“Human, mostly,” Baekhyun answers, smirking. “Have been for quite a few years now.”

“Oh really?” Kyungsoo counters easily. “Because with the way you were yapping our ears off I figured you were a dog.”

“Dogs are cute, I can live with that,” Baekhyun decides, nodding. “Cute like you.”

It gets the expected reaction as Kyungsoo scowls and kicks Baekhyun beneath the table, causing him to howl out in pain as he grips onto his shin but bangs his knee onto the table as he pulls his leg up, causing another cry of pain. It’s strange that even without his shirt or his jersey or even a goddamn cap Baekhyun seamlessly weaves himself into the fabric of their team, but the sheer fact that there’s no trace of Baekhyun never having been there to begin with sends shudders down Minseok’s side, along with the fact that Baekhyun is sitting right where Han used to sit, all those months ago.

 

 

⚾

 

 

Baekhyun’s permanence in Minseok’s life steadily grows, even if the permanence on his team does not, and it's helped nothing by Yixing’s strange fondness for the new boy alongside the odd chemistry they have together as pitcher and catcher, reminiscent of Minseok and Yixing’s own.

Naturally, since he’s only human, this causes jealousy to be a very familiar feeling in Minseok’s chest, and it feels something akin to what it had been like as a child, every time his sister had started playing with the best toys and then suddenly Minseok had wanted to play with them too.

It’s not like Minseok doesn’t _understand_ why everyone has suddenly warmed up to Baekhyun and treated him like a team member even if he’s not wearing blue yet, because Baekhyun is funny and charming and _loud_ but has this way of worming beneath your skin even when you don’t want him there. Only thing is, Minseok seems to be the only team member who manages to keep his wariness towards him, still not trusting him --although Kyungsoo might, too, but he doesn’t really trust anyone, so.

“You’re just jealous, hyung,” Jongdae says, rolling his eyes as he pulls his textbooks out and dumps them on the library table. “Because Baekhyunnie and Yixing-hyung get along like two peas in a pod and you don’t.”

“That’s not true,” Minseok hisses, scowling, because it isn’t. Even _if_ they do get along… that easily --which they do, Minseok has to admit-- it’s not like he has any stake or claim over Yixing. (Even if he kind of maybe wishes he did.) Minseok and Yixing have always been a sort of duo --at least, ever since losing their trio status-- and Minseok just doesn’t like the way Baekhyun kind of ruins that.

It has nothing to do with the way Baekhyun smiles at Yixing like he’s the only person in the world and always finds some excuse to put a hand on his knee, his thigh, his bicep, his fucking _pinky_.

Nothing at all.

“ _Right_ ,” Jongdae says, without an ounce of belief, and waves Chanyeol over to their table as he spots him across the library. “You know, you’re probably just taking out your frustrations on Baekhyun because you’re not getting laid.” Jongdae hums at this, tapping his pen on his workbook, and Minseok splutters. “I took psychology one semester, I would know. It’s a fact that sex relaxes people.”

“It would explain why Minseok-hyung is so uptight,” Chanyeol says, and when he places his water bottle on the edge of the table it’s just a _little_ too close to the edge for comfort, Minseok pushing it back so it won’t tip off. Jongdae and Chanyeol just look at him. “My point exactly.”

“I’m not uptight,” Minseok argues, scoffing as he lines up his pencils in height order beside his books. “And my sex-life is none of your business.”

“Yeah it’s nobody’s business if it doesn’t exist,” Jongdae snorts, and Chanyeol high-fives him with an accompanying _nice_ that is really, far too loud for the library, Minseok sighing as he places his head in his hands. Between baseball and his last year of undergrad, Minseok doesn’t have _time_ for a sex-life, and it really is like, the last of his priorities.

Besides, it’s not like Minseok’s got the room for anything like _that_ when Yixing occupies that tiny fragment of his mind, anyway. Yixing, his best friend, his catcher, his teammate, with his kind laugh and soft smile and the way he always looks at Minseok even when nobody else seems to.

That is, until Baekhyun’s around, and now suddenly Minseok feels like the odd one out, all over again. Baekhyun, who is everything Minseok isn’t and never will be, beautiful and bright and charming and fun, who fits so well into the space beside Yixing like he’d never not been there to begin with, and Baekhyun, who obviously cares and adores Yixing so much --and Yixing right back-- that Minseok can’t even find the heart within him to bother hating the boy.

“Hyung?” Chanyeol asks, blinking innocently as he catches the way Minseok stares off into space. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Minseok lies, around the tightness in his chest and the surrendering feeling alongside it. “I’m fine.”

 

 

⚾

 

 

Minseok is not surprised one week when Baekhyun walks into the locker room and pulls on a jersey, and he doesn’t think anyone else on the team is either. Baekhyun had dumped himself into their team in a method that Minseok had quickly learnt was _entirely_ Baekhyun-esque --i.e, _loudly_ \-- and he’d _made_ himself a place. There wasn’t so much the sharp, refinement of Baekhyun melding himself into a team member so much as there was Baekhyun shaping everything else to accommodate _him_ instead.

What _does_ surprise Minseok, however, is the number _four_ plastered on his back, blinking at it.

“Cleanup?” He blurts, before he can stop himself, and Baekhyun turns to him just as he pulls his t-shirt off, holding his undershirt in his hands, blinking at him curiously, cocking his head. Minseok does not have issues with self-control, and that’s how he stops his eyes from roving over the tanned skin of Baekhyun’s torso, the clean cut _V_ of his stomach as it dips beneath his fitted pants.

“And?” Baekhyun prompts, waiting, while Minseok swallows dry. “What about it?”

“No I just--” Minseok shuts the locker behind him softly, just to give himself an excuse to look away. “Chanyeol… usually…”

“Times change,” Baekhyun answers simply, and Minseok grunts in affirmation as he ties the laces on his cleats, keeping his eyes focused on the tip of his shoe. “Coach swapped him to seventh." Baekhyun licks his lips. "I’ve always played cleanup, I don’t know how to do any other.”

Minseok snorts, and when Baekhyun tips his head again, he realises there’s no joke in it. This scrawny, brown-haired boy with a too-wide grin and an oversized jersey is really expected to push Kyungsoo, Minseok, and Yixing to home base in a single hit.

Impossible.

“That’s fairly selfish of you,” Minseok comments, before he can stop himself. “Taking what you want and assuming that the rest of us are more adaptable.”

“But you are,” Baekhyun answers almost immediately, biting his bottom lip. “More flexible than I am, I mean.” A beat of silence passes, and then, “I don’t deal well with filling out expectations.”

Minseok narrows his eyes. “Anyone can play so long as they have a ball and a bat,” he shoulders his bag, moving to the doorway. “But _baseball_ is a team sport.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Baekhyun continues, and whereas Minseok had expected his leaving of the locker room to cut the conversation short Baekhyun merely follows him out, his bag a haphazard mess of half-shoved clothing and equipment. “I don’t understand why _you’re_ getting so offended just because the line-up’s been switched around a little. It doesn’t even affect you.”

“That’s _not_ the problem here,” Minseok argues, and pushes his index finger into Baekhyun’s chest, surprised by his lack of balance as he throws out a foot to catch his balance. “You don’t deal well with expectations and _I_ don’t deal well with members that put themselves before the team.”

Baekhyun’s brow furrows in confusion, but Minseok doesn’t have time to bother dealing with _that_ as he scowls and walks across the field, leaving an uncharacteristically silent Baekhyun in the dust behind him.

 

 

⚾

 

 

“Baekhyun’s weirdly quiet today,” Yixing comments from across the cage, as Minseok drives a curveball right into the centre of his mitt. “What did you do?”

Before Junmyeon became ace and Kris had been in his place, the line-up had always been Han, Yixing, Minseok.

And then Han left, and the team was left to pick up after him, to fill the space between losing their best leadoff and their only southpaw; Minseok was left to fill the space of his second best-friend --to no avail.

It’s not like all the bitterness stems from jealousy or anger or pettiness, moreso that the last conversation they’d ever had face to face does, when Minseok asked Han how he could put his own dreams above the need of the team and Han had told him that baseball wasn’t everything.

Because Minseok knows that, really, yet Han had still said it like it was some wise piece of wisdom that Minseok still had to learn, even if he was the older one by just a few days. Han had placed his hand on Minseok’s shoulder, then, given it a light squeeze, and just like that he’d left, leaving the third bed in their old dorm room unmade and messy and Minseok, to pick up after him.

“Who said it was my fault?” Minseok counters, just as he winds up. The ball lands in the mitt with the satisfying thud of leather on leather.

“Of course it was your fault,” Yixing replies, and lightly tosses the ball back, underarm. “Baekhyun looks at you like a kicked puppy.” Yixing pauses, and then, “He really wants you to like him, you know. You don’t have to be so harsh.”

Minseok grunts at that and pitches again, a screwball, this time around. “I only said that it was selfish of him to take the positions _he_ wanted.” He mumbles.

Yixing hums at that, even as he effortlessly catches Minseok’s 100km ball. “But it makes sense to put our players into their strengths, doesn’t it?” This time, it’s a fastball. “Natural selection.” Yixing comments, and Minseok freezes, mid-windup, looking at him.

 _Natural selection_ , Han always used to say, because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and the first-string is no different. Minseok always used to argue that baseball was a team sport, that it relied on the strengths forged between them rather than their individual prowess. Han would look at him, tilt his head, arch an eyebrow, and say, _you don’t really believe that, do you?_

“So this _is_ about Han-hyung,” Yixing says, softly, and Minseok chooses to ignore him by driving a fastball right into his mitt, grunting in exertion. “They are pretty similar, aren’t they?”

To the point that the only difference between them is an addition of three on their backs and the fact that Han played first batter, not fourth. Han had been a southpaw just like Baekhyun is, too, and his grin had always been too big for his face, too sharp for the softness of his features.

“I guess,” Minseok comments, with fake nonchalance as he pitches and pitches and pitches. In hindsight, maybe he _had_ been a little too harsh on Baekhyun, taking out unnecessary hurt on someone who had done nothing wrong in accepting the positions handed to him --the jealousy probably hadn't helped, either. Baekhyun had said he hadn’t dealt well with expectations, and Minseok had unknowingly bound him to them anyway, tried to force an inflexible boy to fit within the shape he wanted him to be. Minseok sighs, and pulls off his glove. “I should apologise to him, shouldn’t I?”

Yixing’s smile is as reassuring and blinding as per usual, always knowing exactly how to handle Minseok in a way Minseok doesn't even know how to handle himself, a motivation for Minseok to gather up his pride and stash it away --alongside other much, _much_ more problematic things.

 

 

⚾

 

 

As easy as it is to _say_ he’ll apologise, actually doing it turns out to be a lot harder, as Minseok stands with his tray and fidgets, staring at Baekhyun’s back. He’s laughing with Yixing about something, Yixing’s smile bright and wide across his face, and it causes a myriad of strange, bitter emotions to spring forth from Minseok’s chest, not exactly helping his lenience towards the whole ‘play nice’ thing.

Either way, Yixing catches Minseok’s eyes, and smiles a different sort of smile, the one he saves only for Minseok behind a catcher’s mask on field or for when he wordlessly offers out the other earphone on the bus ride back home. The fact that Baekhyun’s seen it now, too, turning around, makes something twist from the inside out, coil around him in the colour green and build up _bitter_ in the back of his throat. Baekhyun looks at Yixing the way Minseok does when nobody is looking, and it would be more soul-crushing if it weren’t so damned  _relatable_.

Minseok sighs, and resigns himself to his fate.

“I’m sorry,” he says immediately, as he plants himself next to Baekhyun and opposite Yixing, looking down at his tray. “For the other day, what I said. I was out of line.”

When he dares to glance up, Baekhyun is only smiling at him, with his chin in his palm and a smile on his face, elbow on the tabletop.

“I’m not sure if I forgive you quite yet,” Baekhyun answers, and Minseok blinks, startled, because he’s not sure he has much more to offer. Baseball is a team sport, and Minseok knows the machine won’t function unless the gears between it are well-oiled; even if his closest interaction to Baekhyun will be trusting him to drive Minseok closer to home base, it’s still an amount of trust that will waver between them if the rift Minseok accidentally-maybe-purposefully put between them doesn’t close. “You’ll have to make it up to me.”

Yixing laughs, and Minseok arches an eyebrow, as Baekhyun bites into his lips, rounded ears a shade of off-pink.

“Baekhyunnie here is failing calc two,” Yixing inputs fondly, grinning at the sheepishness on Baekhyun’s face and the way Minseok glances between the two. “I told him you were familiar with fighting those demons.”

Minseok snorts, and Baekhyun flushes again, spluttering.

“Maths is so _dumb_ ,” Baekhyun comments, jabbing his chopsticks into his bowl of rice. “And I transferred here to play baseball, not to _study_.”

“Weird how the university still expects you to graduate, huh?” Minseok teases, and finds a strange sort of satisfaction in the way it colours Baekhyun’s face as he grumbles indignantly into his glass of water, wiping the stray droplets that fall with the back of his hand. “What do you want to do with your degree, anyway?”

“Hopefully nothing that isn’t baseball,” Baekhyun mumbles, and taps his fingers idly on the tabletop. “I’ve wanted to play for the Eagles since before I even knew what baseball was.”

Minseok raises his eyebrows at that, Yixing smiling. “Not Kia Tigers?” It’s common around here that everyone wants to play for the best --since they _are_ the best-- rather than the teams they’d grown up loving as a child. Baekhyun shrugs.

“I’m a sucker for the underdog,” he says, and looks to Minseok curiously, almost uncertain. Minseok is at least inclined to agree that this strange, newfound acquaintanceship sure is... different, but Yixing’s smiling encouragingly, at the very least, helping to ease away the tensions in that way his presence always does. “What about you?”

“I want to do biomedical engineering,” Minseok says. “Help out with prosthetics--” Baekhyun’s looking at him funny now, though, brow scrunching. “--What?”

“Not baseball?” Baekhyun asks, tilting his head, and Minseok knows that maybe it seems funny that the member of the team whose whole life consists of baseball the most is the only one who doesn’t see it in his future, but at the end of the day Minseok doesn’t have the skills or the strength or the aptitude of a player set for KBO. Minseok’s always been unsure about his future, wary of it just like every other college kid, but the one thing he knows is that he’ll never be scouted into the professional league, not when there are too many right-handed pitchers that are just _better_ \--most of them can stand on their own, too; Minseok is nothing without Yixing.

“No,” Minseok answers, quietly, and Baekhyun is still looking at him strangely, Yixing’s resigned look on his own face familiar as they’ve had this argument too many times to count.

“But why?” Baekhyun argues, brow furrowing. “You’re _good_ , you know? Why throw that all away, why sell yourself short--”

“Just leave it, Baekhyunnie,” Yixing says, before Minseok can even open his mouth, sighing. “He’s stubborn when it comes to this.”

Yixing’s face looks somewhat disappointed, and Minseok doesn’t know what to do with that, as it curls in his stomach and makes him nauseous. He doesn’t know what to with Baekhyun’s crestfallen expression either.

“Okay, but if you _did_ go pro,” Baekhyun starts carefully, licking his lips. Minseok knows a peace offering when he sees one, even if Yixing still looks oddly unhappy. “Who _would_ you play for?”

“LG Twins,” Minseok mumbles, and at the delighted look on Baekhyun’s face, just says, “Shut _up_.”

The rest of their dinner passes with a newly laid out groundwork of strange camaraderie, and Minseok finds himself easily warming up to the same easy charm that he’d disliked from Baekhyun all those weeks ago, his hungry, greedy need to know everything about Minseok and involve himself in it, riling him up to the edge and then pulling back immediately just before Minseok snaps oddly fondness inducing, of all things. They have a strange bickering sort of relationship, Minseok finds, but Yixing just smiles at the two of them, laughing at their antics as Baekhyun just grins right back.

Minseok, for the first time in a while, doesn’t seem to mind it all that much.

“So can you help me or not?” Baekhyun mutters at the end, eyes cast downwards. “With calc, I mean.” Minseok shrugs, accidentally bumping their knees together beneath the table, but he doesn’t mind the contact. This Baekhyun isn’t the carefully composed Baekhyun as of late so much as it is whatever vulnerable thing he keeps protected beneath his shell, and Minseok finds he doesn’t mind this version even half as much as the other one, having grown accustomed to it over the course of the night.

“Sure,” Minseok answers, shrugging, and Baekhyun’s look of surprise would almost be offensive if it wasn’t just straight up _cute_. Huh.

“I told you so,” Yixing adds, smiling wide enough that his dimple is present, pressing into his cheek. “Minseokkie-hyung doesn’t know how to say no.”

“So long as you ask nicely,” Minseok adds, jabbing Yixing’s shin with his toe beneath the table.

“I guess I’ll have to learn some manners, then,” Baekhyun says, and the grin that slowly grows along his face isn’t too-wide --in fact, it seems to fit just right.

 

 

⚾

 

 

True to his word Baekhyun really _is_ failing calculus, if the sight of his arms full of textbooks at the entryway to Minseok’s room is any indication, dirt from the field still smeared on his left cheek.

“Hi,” he says, and shuffles from foot-to-foot. “Turns out I have a test tomorrow?”

“ _Baekhyun_ ,” Minseok sighs, exasperated. “It’s ten pm.”

“And?” He blinks, tilts his head slightly. “You don’t exactly look asleep.” Baekhyun uses the hand that’s not desperately clutching onto the one-thousand page calculus textbook to gesture to Minseok’s desk in the corner of the room, where his notes and workbook for Algebra four are spread out meticulously, eyebrows raised. Minseok supposes Yixing _is_ out for the night, drinking with friends from the international students’ society, so Baekhyun could use his desk--

“Make yourself at home,” Minseok says, sighing, and watches as Baekhyun dumps himself and his textbooks on the edge of Minseok’s bed rather than Yixing’s desk, crossing his legs.

Baekhyun whistles. “So tidy,” he notes neck craning as he makes out Minseok’s half of the room --Yixing’s half a _little_ more messy in comparison, but Minseok’s pretty sure his cleaning habits could put a sterile, quarantine lab to shame. “Maybe _you_ should play cleanup hitter, hyung.”

Minseok gives Baekhyun an unimpressed look as Baekhyun just laughs, pleased with himself, leaving crinkles in Minseok’s otherwise pressed sheets, causing him to frown. Minseok doesn’t ever remember letting Baekhyun call him _hyung_ , but everyone else on the team does, so he doesn’t see why he should mind.

“Ha- _ha_ ,” he laughs, sardonically, and rolls his eyes before turning back to his good friend algebra. It’s the second last semester Minseok will ever have to take of maths before he can turn to finally specialising his masters, and the prospect is always so daunting late at night when Minseok allows himself to look down the edge of the cliff, rather than out.

For once in his life, Baekhyun is completely quiet, as he spreads his books out across Minseok’s bed and kicks his legs into the air, lying on his stomach and pouring through the pages diligently. Minseok had expected this to be awkward, somehow, but it isn’t. Even when Baekhyun is quiet he’s still a distraction, though, and Minseok can’t help himself but watch in amusement as Baekhyun’s expressions crescendo, growing from slight discomfort to full-blown confusion to outright _panic_ as he regards the books beneath them like they’re written in ancient greek rather than hangul.

“I can’t take this anymore!” Baekhyun exclaims, and perhaps Minseok should be surprised by the outburst but he isn’t, trying to keep the smile off his face. “Hyung you _have_ to help me with this, _please_ \--”

“It’s easier once you get the hang of it” Minseok explains, resettling himself so that he’s sitting next to Baekhyun as he wriggles over, letting Minseok pick up one of his stupidly bright mechanical pencils with all the charms hanging off, scratching it into the page. “You’ve just gotta…” Move an x, rearrange a y, differentiate, try not to focus on the way Baekhyun’s watching him instead of the paper and biting his lip. “Problem solved.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun says suddenly, blinking while Minseok watches him through fond amusement as Baekhyun beams up at him in thanks, their eyes meeting somewhere along the way, Baekhyun licking his lips and, softer, “ _Oh_.”

Minseok pulls away, clearing his throat, thankful for the feel off solid flooring beneath his feet rather than the unsure springs of his own mattress. “You’ll get better with practice,” he comments, returning to his algebra and _drowning_ himself in it, simply so that he can’t notice that it’s increasingly becoming hard to breathe.

“I’m sure I will,” Baekhyun says, and Minseok tries to ignore the way Baekhyun's eyes are burning holes into the back of his neck, expectant.

 

 

⚾

 

 

“Oh, hyung,” Yixing slurs, as he stumbles through the dorm room. “You’re awake.”

“I am,” Minseok says bemusedly, and blinks back the sleep that blurs the corners of his eyes. He’d spent most of the night helping Baekhyun more than he’d done his own work and even as he’d returned to his algebra worksheets the z’s and y’s and x’s had shifted into the curve of Baekhyun’s smile and the sound of his breathing across the room, disrupting what little focus Minseok could muster. Baekhyun had left sometime between midnight and one but even now his presence has still seeped into the room, flowing out into every corner and rooting itself into the imprints on Minseok’s bed. “Just need to finish these before tomorrow.”

“What you _need_ , is to sleep,” Yixing corrects, and Minseok would find it funny how even a drunk Yixing is still a Yixing that puts others before himself if it weren’t for Yixing wrapping his arms around him and pulling him from his seat, lazily pushing him towards the bed.

“I will tuck you in,” Yixing declares drunkenly, and Minseok can’t help but laugh as Yixing tries to pull his sheets from where they’ve been crammed to keep the bed neat, eventually wrenching them free and fumbling with the logistics behind getting them out from beneath Minseok.

“Yixing,” Minseok says sweetly, laughing lightly. “I don’t need to be tucked in.”

“Nonsense,” Yixing slurs, and his Korean always has been a little more messy when he’s drunk, his accent more prominent when he’s not carefully watching his own pronunciation. “Everybody needs to be tucked into bed occasionally, hyung. How else will we stay safe from the monsters under our bed?”

It's not exactly the monsters under his bed that Minseok's afraid of, so much as it is the lack of space between his face and Yixing's and the quickly diminishing presence of his own self control.

“Even you?” Minseok counters, as he doesn’t fight the way Yixing settles the blankets over his body and his hands roam, burning even through the sheets as they press against Minseok’s skin with every push and pull.

“Even me,” Yixing decides, after some deliberation, and smiles pleasantly at his own handiwork as Minseok only looks up at him helplessly, feeling like the human reincarnation of a burrito.

“And who’s gonna tuck you in?” Minseok tries, amused, trying to wrench free to no avail.

Yixing pauses on this, thinking. “Baekhyunnie.” He decides eventually, grinning, pleased with his own problem solving, and Minseok just laughs again, watching as Yixing fumbles to pull his clothes off.

“And who’s gonna tuck Baekhyunnie in?” He asks, wiggling to loosen Yixing’s determined tucking and shifting so that he’s more comfortable, staring at the lamp on the bedside table between them rather than the light it casts across Yixing’s torso as he wrenches his shirt off, leaving it as a ball on the floor which has Minseok clicking his tongue in distaste but too sleepy and comfortable to really _do_ anything about it.

“You can,” Yixing answers, yawning, and settles further into his bed, humming. “We can all tuck each other in.”

Minseok laughs softly, and reaches over to turn off the light. “I don’t think that’s how it works,” he says, quietly, and Yixing grunts noncommittally as Minseok just pulls the sheets further over himself, holding them beneath his chin.

“Of course it works… hyung…” Yixing mumbles lazily, already beginning to trail off. “You just gotta… _believe…_ ”

Minseok doesn’t think _belief_ will break the natural law and order of the world, yet still he grins to himself in fondness and amusement, letting the sounds of Yixing’s drunk snores lull him to sleep rather than worrying about the algebra homework he hadn’t finished or the way Baekhyun’s smile has etched itself into his memory unwanted, right alongside Yixing’s.

 

 

⚾

 

 

Most weeks pass just like that and somewhere along the way Baekhyun integrates himself into Minseok’s life the same way Minseok helps him integrate his calculus homework each night after practice, leaving creases in his sheets that never come out no matter how hard Minseok _pulls_. Most nights Yixing is there too, and the three of them cram their procrastinated homework in together, laughing every time Baekhyun groans in frustration from the bed or when Yixing asks the definition for a word in Korean that neither of the other two actually know.

Their bonding time extends outside of study sessions too, and suddenly they’re eating together, spending breaks between classes together, Minseok and Baekhyun taking turns pitching into Yixing’s mitt as they practice together--

“Ah, the baseball uniform,” Jongdae says, approaching from behind and slinging his legs over the bench as he sits next to Minseok with a water bottle in his hand, towel strung around his neck. “Truly god’s greatest gift to mankind and also his worst curse.” Minseok tears his eyes away from where he'd been watching Baekhyun, frowning, and the ever upturned corners of Jongdae’s lips lift just that little bit further.

“Who ever said I played for the other team?” Minseok counters, eyebrow arched. Jongdae just gives him an unimpressed look.

“Was it meant to be a secret?” He asks, brushing his hair out of his face. “Because you stare at Yixing like he’s a magical unicorn that poops out rainbows so really, hyung, if you were trying to hide it you should do _better_ \--”

Minseok punches Jongdae’s shoulder, and it’s an effective method in shutting him up as he yowls, whining high-pitched and nasally as he rubs at the spot with a dejected pout on his face, lips still curled.

“Shut up,” Minseok tells him, scowling, and gazes back out onto the field, where Baekhyun is pitching into Yixing’s mitt. They have good chemistry together, with Baekhyun’s blind faith in Yixing unfounded but solid, trusting Yixing’s calls even in practice. Yixing’s the sort of catcher that defies expectations, a great shot caller hidden beneath his otherwise airy exterior; really, it should come as no surprise that Baekhyun works so well with him, in hindsight, a boy who doesn’t fit any expectations to begin with. “Maybe it’s just a Yixing thing.” Minseok mumbles, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

“Maybe it is,” Jongdae agrees, quieter, glancing at Minseok sideways. “But the way you’ve been staring at Baekhyun’s ass in baseball pants for the past ten minutes tells me it probably isn’t--”

“ _What_?” Minseok splutters, turning red despite himself. “I haven’t-- I _haven’t_ \--” Because he _hasn’t_ , really, has been far too focused on Baekhyun’s southpaw pitching and his clumsy, unrefined wind-up rather than the curve of his thighs in skin-tight pants and the way he looks at the end of his pitch, leg in the air, _bent over_ \-- Minseok groans; Jongdae laughs delightedly.

“Even though you hate him you still think he’s hot,” Jongdae says, and cackles, shaking his head.

“I don’t hate him,” Minseok mumbles, because he never had and he still doesn’t and he never will, no matter how much he wants to. Through it all, Baekhyun will always be just some dumb teenager with a too-big grin, but his heart is never in the wrong place, looking out for his teammates in a way Minseok knows makes him the perfect missing addition to the first string’s lineup.

“ _Right_ ,” Jongdae says, smirking. “I guess it was just all your UST and sexual frustration, then,” Minseok splutters, turning red, but Jongdae pays him no mind. “I mean, really, hyung,” Jongdae continues, squinting slightly as he appraises Baekhyun’s assets from a distance. “It’s not even that good. The best ass on the team is sitting next to your right now and you don’t even--”

“Stop talking,” Minseok pleads, digging the palms of his hands into his eyes. “ _Please_.”

“I’d say ‘make me’ but you seem sexually frustrated enough that I don’t wanna risk it,” Jongdae adds casually, leaning back on his hands and stretching out his legs, cleats digging into the dirt. “Really, hyung, was Yixing’s ass just not enough for you?” Jongdae clicks his tongue. “So greedy.”

“How is it that every time I tell you to stop talking you end up saying more?” Because, _really_ \--Minseok had said please and everything.

“Because everything in Jongdae’s brain works in reverse,” Junmyeon comments, slapping the back of Jongdae’s head as he sits down with a sigh, rolling his right shoulder as Jongdae gives the usual whine. Minseok’s fairly certain that every member of the team has just learnt to adjust their ears to a frequency that blocks it out, at this stage. “Whose ass are we admiring?”

“Baekhyun’s,” Jongdae helpfully adds before Minseok can even make a sound, mouth half-open as his face quickly turns red. “And Yixing’s.”

“Yixing’s is better,” Junmyeon comments casually without a second thought, stretching out his neck. He smiles pleasantly at Minseok, although Minseok has quickly found that Junmyeon’s soft exterior is the mere definition of _looks can be deceiving_. “Boy troubles?”

“Double the trouble,” Jongdae adds, smirking. “Double the fun.”

“I am _not_ having this discussion right now,” Minseok says, because _really_ , can’t a man just admire the shape of another man’s thighs in a baseball uniform without all these strings attached? So many labels and expectations associated with Minseok finding Baekhyun kind of maybe sort of attractive, when really, he’s only human. Baekhyun smiles too big and talks too loudly but that doesn’t stop him from being any less beautiful, hair soft and eyes softer, mouth very _kissable_ when he’s not talking --which is, never, so, Minseok's job is slightly easier. “And I am _not_ having ‘boy troubles’.”

“Sure you aren’t,” Jongdae says patronisingly, and pats Minseok’s shoulder. “It’s just the same old usual pining over Yixing while pretending like you know how to do anything else.”

“I--” Minseok turns so red it feels like his clothes are going to catch fire, mouth opening and closing uselessly. “I don’t--”

Junmyeon and Jongdae exchange a _look_ , and then turn back to Minseok with matching expressions of disbelief, pity, and plain amusement. Isn’t Minseok the eldest in this situation? Why the hell do none of his teammates understand the concept of _respect_? He deserves better than this.

“Hey,” Baekhyun says, entering the bullpen, and tosses a baseball Minseok’s way, causing him to fumble as he tries to catch it. “You’re up.”

Baekhyun’s panting, slightly flushed, sweat dripping down the edge of his nose even as his cap shadows the half of his face, and Minseok’s eyes are magnetized to it, watching the way Baekhyun begins twisting his torso to cool down, stretching out his arms, reaching down to his toes--

Jongdae coughs pointedly and raises both eyebrows, Junmyeon giving a similar sort of look as Minseok immediately tears his eyes away, picking up his glove.

“Right,” he says, mumbling only slightly as his fingers are too slippery with sweat to pull the glove on. “My turn."

“Have fun hyung~” Jongdae adds unhelpfully, and Minseok tries very determinedly to ignore the way he and Junmyeon snicker as he walks away from the bullpen, purposefully angling himself so that Baekhyun remains in his blind spot, allowing Minseok to keep up an air of ignorance for just that little bit longer.

 

 

⚾

 

 

“You seem distracted lately,” Yixing comments, when they’re back in the room and Minseok’s lying on his bed, throwing a baseball at the ceiling idly while ignoring the way his mattress is permanently dipped as if it doesn’t know how to forget about Byun Baekhyun either. “Is everything alright?”

Before, when Han had still been around, Minseok had lived in a glass-wall house, unused to the way Han had his methods of seeing through him even when Minseok had gone his whole life as invisible, looking through a one-way mirror.

In a way, Han had always been the bridge between Minseok and Yixing, the little piece of glue that stuck a boy who’d been seen his whole life and a boy who didn’t want to be together, nagging and incessant. Then, he’d left, and something between Minseok and Yixing had shifted, marginally, small enough to not be noticed at first but slowly growing over time. It had been Han that had pointed out their chemistry together, originally, as pitcher and catcher and nothing more, at the way Minseok’s lack of self-confidence on the mound and off lead to his reliance on the catcher to make the calls, and Yixing’s sharp, honed game sense beneath a soft outer-shell could be fully exploited properly. Not that Junmyeon nor Jongdae are particularly stubborn pitchers, more that their speed is faster and their accuracy lesser, and their own game sense clashes against Yixing’s and causes dissonance, occasionally. It’s something they all worked on, over time, but it still pales in comparison to Minseok and Yixing, always in-sync from day one.

Yonsei’s home-grown shadow ace duo.

But when Han had left only for his space to remain behind, Minseok found himself less focused on baseball and more disoriented, wondering about the way Han had said that baseball wasn’t everything. To Minseok, baseball had _always_ been everything, ever since he’d turned five and his father had placed a glove on his left hand and a baseball on the other, too big for his immature fingers to hold properly but determined all the same. Han left, leaving nothing but his space and a seed of doubt behind, flourishing in the back of Minseok’s mind. Without Han around everything was quieter, calmer, and Minseok began spending less time at training and more time in the dorms, studying for his engineering degree, and less time staring at Yixing’s mitt so much as he was staring at Yixing’s face, barred off by the catcher’s mask.

Han left and something between Minseok and Yixing shifted, pulled taut, strained, and without Han around it was harder to ignore, somehow, the way Minseok wanted to taste the sweat that gathered at Yixing’s throat and the way Yixing would smile at Minseok when nobody else was around. A team dynamic like _that_ leads to disruptions in the machine, and Han had said that baseball wasn’t all there is yet Minseok found himself wondering about what else out there there could be, if everything else only hurt like this.

“Earth to Minseokkie-hyung?” Yixing tries, clicking his fingers until Minseok looks at him, blinks. “You never answered my question.”

“I’m fine, Xing-ge,” he answers cutely, smiling to throw Yixing off. “Just a little tired.”

It’s not exactly a lie, because between Byun Baekhyun inserting himself into Minseok’s life and late-night study sessions that never go anywhere and Minseok _still_ having algebra homework he hasn’t done, tired doesn’t even seem to cut the way Minseok’s mind runs at a hundred miles per hour while his body overworks itself at practice.

Yixing’s dimple shows even when he frowns, and Minseok wants to reach out and smooth it down, kiss it away. That, he thinks, is just another problem to add to the list.

 

 

⚾

 

 

There’s a careful balance to be had in a team sport that requires each member to fit and work together like gears that had been manufactured to intersect, rather than a bunch of random teenagers scouted in backwater country towns. Things like… _that_ , can lead to a ripple of dysfunction that the entire team will feel the aftershocks of, and that’s why Minseok is content with his alleged pining, used to it, by now, a familiar companion. Minseok may look at Yixing like he holds the stars in his hands but so does everybody else so it’s not really a _problem_ , Yixing is as loveable as a puppy or kitten or some horribly adorable hybrid combination of both so it’s easy, sometimes, for Minseok, to pretend like his affection isn't just a little bit different.

Baekhyun, on the other hand, is completely different.

Because Baekhyun is a part of Minseok’s life now without Minseok ever having made a space for him, pushing through and barging in and treating his and Yixing’s dorm room like his own rather than as if he was a guest. Baekhyun, too, looks at Yixing like he holds all the stars in his hands but it’s _different_ to the way other people do, Minseok knows, because it’s the sort of thing you only learn to notice if you’ve been seeing it in the mirror every morning, tracing out the shape of it.

But the worst part is, is that in the quieter moments, in the late hours of night (or early hours of the morning), when Minseok’s mind is washed away by sleep-deprivation and his self-control slips, in the moments where Minseok actually allows himself to _look_ at Baekhyun, Baekhyun is always looking back.

And Minseok doesn’t _understand_.

Han had said that baseball wasn’t all there is, yet sometimes, Minseok wishes it were the opposite. Baseball is _simple_ , baseball is _familiar_ , baseball comes with lines and rules that you can’t cross, can’t question, and baseball comes with a certain set and order to it that Minseok’s otherwise tumultuous life just can’t recreate --no matter how much he wishes it could.

Minseok knows baseball, _understands_ it, it’s just life that he can’t quite get the hang of.

This… _thing_ , between them --as Minseok so eloquently words it-- is something akin to ivy; slowly-grown and precarious --like hands clawing throughout his insides, unnoticeable until he looks outside his window and realises all the light has been blotted out. Baekhyun becomes such a constant in Minseok’s life that Minseok doesn’t remember if he’d never been there to begin with and even now he’s acutely aware of Baekhyun’s presence, fine-tuned to it like the beat of a song he can’t get out of his head.

Baekhyun’s lying on Minseok’s bed --as per usual-- humming to himself, chewing on the tip of his mechanical pencil even as the charms jingle, when he says, “Hyung, can you help me with this question?”

Minseok doesn’t make his response immediate, just swallows, breathes, takes a moment to calm himself before standing and making his way over to the bed, leaning over Baekhyun.

“You just need to define y before you put it into the equation,” he says simply, after glancing over the question, and Baekhyun scrunches his nose in lack of understanding, glaring at the page in front of him.

“But I don’t _know_ what y is,” Baekhyun argues, turns upwards so that he’s looking at Minseok, brow furrowed. “They expect me to find y when all they give me is x?” He huffs, blowing a tuft of hair out of his eyes. “Three variables makes everything so much _harder_.”

Minseok laughs, and leans down just a little bit to tap the page. “You already have z,” he explains, and Baekhyun’s breath hitches when Minseok doesn’t pull away. “From the previous part of the question...”

He trails off, because Baekhyun is looking at him like he there’s a hundred expectations he wants Minseok to fill, a variable with infinite possibilities to plug into the equation. Definitions are hard when it comes to people like Byun Baekhyun, because it's the sort of closed-off-ness and abundance of noise that makes lines blurred, sharp-edges turn curved, leaves Minseok confused and dazed and so, _so_ lost. All he gets from Baekhyun is the dart of his tongue as he wets his own lips and the flick of his eyes downwards and Minseok doesn't truly translate the message into what it means until Baekhyun leans up and closes the gap between them, kissing him.

"Um," Is all Minseok manages with the complete grace of a middle-schooler after receiving a confession, fingers unconsciously moving to his mouth. Baekhyun blinks at him.

"Sorry," He says, pulling away sheepishly, and Minseok thinks to say don't be sorry, not really --because he shouldn't be, not at all.

It's a shame he's more of a coward than what he lets on.

"I thought you--" Minseok starts, swallowing around the log in his throat where his words should be and he _chokes_. "--I thought you liked Yixing." He finishes, bluntly, voice turning into a whisper. The words hurt him more than he'll ever care to admit, and the breath he exhales afterwards burns his throat on the way out, tearing through it. Observant Minseok, caring Minseok, loyal to his friends in undying amounts.

Greedy Minseok

"I do." Baekhyun says simply, shrugging, because maybe when it comes to people like Baekhyun it really is just that simple. There are no lines or rules or regulation in a life like Baekhyun’s because Baekhyun’s always been the one who makes them, shaping the world around him rather than Minseok, who morphs to fit the mold that’s been pre-cut. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like you too.”

Minseok’s lungs freeze at that, heart pounding, and over the ringing in his ears it’s hard to make sense of, this... _thing_ , because Baekhyun had crashed into Minseok’s heart with the subtlety of a herd of elephants and made a home for himself there but Minseok had never asked for it, had never allowed Baekhyun with his soft eyes and square grins to dump his textbooks on Minseok’s bed each night and leave scars on the ceiling of his heart.

But he can't deny that there's not something  _there_ , a sense of security and clean lines that Minseok can't --could  _never_ \-- get with Yixing, and he can't deny the fact that maybe Minseok sort of likes Baekhyun too. Somehow. He's still a little confused on how it happened, in hindsight. 

"I'm not..." Minseok starts, struggles to find the words. He’d be blind not to notice the way Baekhyun looks at Yixing when Minseok’s looking at Yixing too, written in a language that only _he_ is capable of deciphering because they’re the only two who speak it, but he’d never thought that maybe he and Yixing had wedged themselves into Baekhyun’s life the same way he had in theirs. "I'm not a plan B."

“I know,” Baekhyun mumbles, right against Minseok’s lips, and suddenly they’re kissing again, Baekhyun twisting and turning until he’s pushing Minseok back against the mattress and straddling him, as impatient in bed as he is everywhere else, in calculus two, in the cafeteria line, in the bullpen or in the batter’s box. His kisses are messy and eager, too much tongue and too much teeth, and as he mouths down the line of Minseok’s neck he somehow manages to ask, “Is this okay?” A single hand skirting around the waist of Minseok’s jeans.

“Yeah,” Minseok whispers, pulling Baekhyun’s face up so that they can kiss again, hastily pressing their mouths together. It’s a messy clashing of preferences that don’t quite synchronise just right as Baekhyun speeds up while Minseok tries to slow down, digging his fingertips into Baekhyun’s cheek like he’s afraid Baekhyun might pull away. There are a hundred thoughts in the back of Minseok’s mind at all hours of the day but here, with Baekhyun between his legs and his mouth on Minseok’s, all of them seem to blur and Minseok loses himself to the sensations as they grind against each other, swallowing up every noise Baekhyun whimpers or moans out of his mouth.

“So quiet, hyung,” Baekhyun mumbles, as a particular angle and press has Minseok gasping and exhaling a shuddering breath, Baekhyun idly dancing his fingertips along the dip of Minseok’s waist. “Even in bed, you’re just so quiet.”

“Even in bed you’re just so loud,” Minseok grumbles in response, and Baekhyun laughs breathily, dodging Minseok’s mouth when he tries to kiss him just to shut him up and pulling back.

“I know of some effective ways to get me to shut up,” Baekhyun says, and just the image of his head between Minseok’s knees has Minseok thrusting up uselessly against nothing, grunting as he slams his head back into the sheets, breaths short. Baekhyun with a pencil between his teeth or his own lips, Baekhyun licking the sauce off his fingers or the rice stuck to his chopsticks, Baekhyun and his stupid, pretty mouth that Minseok’s spent so long preventing himself from thinking about the idea that the unthought fantasies might come true has him biting back a groan, chewing on his tongue, refusing to lose at Baekhyun’s game even though he doesn’t know the rules.

Licking his lips, Baekhyun says, “Is this alright?” and Minseok grunts out a choked _yes_ that has Baekhyun laughing even as he pulls Minseok’s pants down, kissing the skin of his thighs. He lifts Minseok’s shirt up with his nose, and Minseok arches his back so he can pull it off, shuddering at the feeling of Baekhyun kissing down his abs and licking every line between them, nosing at his snail trail.

“Could’ve just gone for a handjob,” Minseok comments, when Baekhyun is sucking marks on the inside of his legs --of _course_ Baekhyun’s impatient half the time and a tease for the rest, inconsistent in every aspect, winding Minseok up and stringing him out to dry.

“I’m a pitcher,” Baekhyun says, biting the skin hard enough to have Minseok choking on air, digging his nails into the tops of his own thighs. “I don’t want to injure my wrist.”

“I don’t think you’ll injure yourself with a handjob,” Minseok says, or tries to, at least, but it gets cut off somewhere along the way with Baekhyun _finally_ reaching Minseok’s dick, pressing his tongue against the cotton and making Minseok _squirm_ , hips pressing desperately in an attempt to get more pressure or wetness or both.

Baekhyun just laughs at him, holds his hips down with one hand, and when he finally pulls the cotton briefs down Minseok blurts, “I’m clean,” and Baekhyun tilts his head slightly. “I mean we-- probably should’ve thought about this before but--”

“Stop thinking hyung,” Baekhyun says offhandedly, and ghosts his fingertips lightly enough along the head of Minseok’s dick that Minseok’s entire brain _fries_. “You always make things messy when you’re thinking.” He licks his lips, hesitating, and says, “I’m clean too, you know, so--”

“Go for it,” Minseok lets out, laughing lightly, but it all quickly stutters off into a choked sort of noise as Baekhyun sinks his mouth around Minseok’s dick and _keeps_ sinking, all the way until his nose hits the base and Minseok can’t help but groan, _feeling_ the way Baekhyun’s lip stretch as he tries --and fails-- to smile.

“Holy shit _Baekhyun_ ,” Minseok breathes out, hips pushing against Baekhyun’s hand, and he desperately winds his fingers through Baekhyun’s dark hair, just to give him something to hold onto while the rest of the world _spins_ in the face of mind-blowing head. Baekhyun pulls back, gasping, and wipes the drool of his chin as he stretches out his jaw, wincing.

“Are you oka--” Minseok tries to ask, but fails ultimately once again as Baekhyun pushes himself back into place without a word, no longer deep-throating but still sucking and hollowing out his cheeks diligently, tongue pressed right against the head. Minseok groans again, head tipping back, and when he dares to look at Baekhyun Baekhyun’s looking straight back, eyes impossibly dark and heavy beneath short lashes as he moans around Minseok’s dick and Minseok _feels_ the vibrations travel along the skin, setting his nerves on fire. It doesn’t even occur to Minseok that Baekhyun might just be enjoying this as much as Minseok is until he sees the way Baekhyun is touching himself with his left hand, nose breathing out harshly against Minseok’s dick as he hastily works over his own.

It’s like all the stars align in Minseok’s head when he realises that _this_ is why Baekhyun’s always chewing on _something_ , and he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to last much longer at the thought of _that_ coupled with the way Baekhyun touches himself so unabashedly in front of Minseok like this, moaning around his dick.

“ _Baekhyun_ ,” Minseok breathes out, no amount of air ever seeming like enough. “Don’t-- I’m--” he cuts off, moaning. “--Don’t make a mess.”

Baekhyun splutters suddenly, and he pulls off, coughing even as he wipes the precome off his chin with his already messy hand. It quickly turns to laughing, and Baekhyun says, “Of _course_ you’re worried about making a mess.” Shaking his head even as he lowers himself back down.

“I don’t want to do laundry so early in the week,” Minseok mumbles, indignant, but comforting thoughts of washing machines are halted by Baekhyun’s mouth around his dick again, three times lucky. It doesn’t take long, and soon Minseok is crying out as his fingers tug at Baekhyun’s hair, Baekhyun eagerly swallowing every last drop until Minseok is oversensitive and squirming, finally pulling off.

“See, hyung,” Baekhyun pants out, although it’s a little bit stuttered as he’s still jerking himself off, sitting up and getting a better angle. “I didn’t leave a mess.” Baekhyun grunts, and his head falls forward, strokes going more frantic, less rhythmical. “ _Fuck_ you look so good, _Minseok--_ ”

“Let me--” Minseok offers, still coming down from his high, but he’s already too late as Baekhyun cries out and comes into his own hand, careful to not let any spill. Baekhyun’s panting now as he slowly loosens his hand, Minseok shuddering at the wave of heat that flows through his body as Baekhyun just reaches over to the bedside table and wipes his hand off on a wad of tissues.

“God,” Baekhyun exhales, as he crawls upwards along the bed and lies next to Minseok even though it’s just a single, throwing an arm across him and pulling him close, nestling against Minseok’s chest. “We have good chemistry.”

Minseok laughs, a giddy giggle, and Baekhyun looks at him strangely before pressing their mouths together, this kiss a lot slower and more languid than the ones before, a lazy moving of lips against lips. Minseok decides that sleepy, cuddly, post-sex make-out Baekhyun is an added reward on _top_ of the Baekhyun with his mouth around Minseok’s dick, but the thought of maybe wanting something like this again is a very dangerous thing.

“Stop thinking, hyung,” Baekhyun mumbles, pulling back and running his thumb along Minseok’s cheekbone, gaze flicking between his eyes and his lips. “I told you you’ll only make things messy.”

“I don’t like mess,” Minseok blurts stupidly, brain and self-control malfunctioning after an orgasm. Baekhyun snickers.

“I noticed,” he says, but his short, sweet kisses don’t have the same effect on Minseok’s thoughts like the hurried, hungry ones had, as they all start trickling back in before Minseok can filter them out, causing him to pull back.

“Why not Yixing?” He asks suddenly, causing Baekhyun to blink at him confusion, tilting his head even as they lie face-to-face on the bed. “I mean if-- if both of us, then why not--”

“Couldn’t I ask you the same?” Baekhyun counters, with a raised eyebrow, and smirks. Minseok swallows.

“I can’t tell, with Yixing, if he…” Minseok trails off, frowning, and realises the weight he has to lose with Yixing is a _lot_ more than what he stands to lose with Baekhyun. Any rift between the two of them and Yonsei loses their shadow duo-aces, while Minseok loses yet another best friend. He’s never felt that, with Baekhyun, because they’re never even on the field at any given time, and Baekhyun’s easy enough to read that Minseok knows there’s no risk in opening himself up, letting Baekhyun examine every single, disjointed piece --they’re two of a kind, after all, in a very different way.

“If he plays for your team?” Baekhyun suggests, propping himself until his head is in his hand and his weight on his elbow, smiling lopsidedly.

“ _My_ team?” Minseok asks, eyebrows raised, and Baekhyun’s grin is all teeth as he looks down at him, Minseok thinking that they probably share the shame jersey here considering Baekhyun just sucked his dick.

“I play for many teams,” Baekhyun says, almost a little nervously as he covers it up with faux bravado.

Minseok lets out a tiny little, “Oh.” In realisation. “That doesn’t bother me, you know, I don’t-- I don’t care about that, that you like…”

“More than one team?” Baekhyun fills in, and Minseok shoves him lightly, grumbling beneath his breath about stupid baseball metaphors. “But I’m glad it doesn’t bother you, because it sort of comes included with the package.”

Minseok shakes his head, and curls his fingers into Baekhyun’s shirt, realising that he himself is still shirtless and mildly disappointed that he hadn’t had a chance to put Baekhyun in the same sort of position, as of yet.

“Nothing about the package bothers me,” Minseok says, and Baekhyun only swallows thickly as Minseok pushes him backwards, fingers tracing invisible patterns curiously down the cloth of his chest as this time Minseok straddles Baekhyun, Baekhyun’s head falling uselessly into the pillows below. “As long as you’re always loyal to Yonsei's team.”

His grip in Baekhyun’s shirt tightens just that little bit further, but there’s no hesitation in Baekhyun’s voice as he says, “Of course I am.” Furrowing his brow like he’s not sure what the connection between bisexuality and baseball is, even if they’ve been using metaphors from it for the past few minutes. Maybe it’s the bitterness of a wound yet to still heal, but Minseok can’t help but grab onto Baekhyun’s shirt like he’s planning on never letting go, knowing that Baekhyun’s filled out a space Minseok’s long since given up on filling and can’t quite handle having it empty all over again.

“I’m not going anywhere, hyung,” Baekhyun says, so quiet even in the silence of the dorm room and the sound of far off chatter down the hall Minseok wonders if he’s misheard it. Slowly, hesitant, Minseok looks into Baekhyun’s face before pressing their mouths together, and with Minseok in control for what _he_ wants, this time around, the rules have changed entirely.

This is the sort of the game that doesn’t play against a clock, though, so Minseok spends it patiently pulling the ever-impatient Baekhyun apart piece by piece, knowing that, at least, for now, they have all the time in the world, letting any thoughts or doubts melt away completely.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 


	2. strike two

* * *

 

When they're not playing baseball, cramming for upcoming midterms, or merely performing necessary bodily functions, Minseok finds they spend a lot of time kissing.

Alongside hasty make-out sessions that turn into questionable blowjobs in equally questionable places. Baekhyun always finds some excuse to use his mouth instead of his hands or his hips because he’s a pitcher and he doesn’t want to injure himself --Minseok never manages to find an excuse to say no.

It’s relieving, somehow, all of it, to have Baekhyun as a solid weight in his life that manages to make everything _lighter_. Minseok has to catch himself, sometimes, during practice or a study session to not just... reach out, to touch Baekhyun in a way that they touch each other only when nobody else is looking. In the scheme of things, their new found relationship is a good distraction, but it’s an even worse temptation.

(Neither of them admit that it's good practice, either.)

It’s exhilarating in the strangest of ways.

“How do you deal with it?” Minseok asks, because the words fly out of his mouth without him realising and he can’t catch them in time. They’re sitting across the room from each other, Yixing cleared out for the evening with afternoon classes and Baekhyun shifts on the bed, understanding Minseok’s question in their way of understanding that only the two of them have.

“Deal with what?” He says regardless, eyes distracted by the maths at his fingertips and mouth distracted by the tip of his pen. Minseok scoffs.

“You know what I’m talking about, brat.”

Baekhyun hums, smirking. “Is that your cute pet name for me?” Minseok doesn’t say anything, just looks at him, expectant, waiting. Baekhyun’s fingers twitch, always restless, always moving, and he sighs. “I don't know i just…” Baekhyun makes a vague gesture. “Do.”

Minseok says nothing, having no idea of what to say either way, and the colour of the pictures in his textbook turn to black-and-white static against the feeling of pins-and-needles in his feet, in his heart.

“How do _you_ deal with it?” Baekhyun asks, eyes drawn directly into Minseok’s face with enough sharpness in them to force the latter to look away. Minseok’s gone his whole life with being opaque, so the fact that Baekhyun can see through him so easily never fails to set him on edge; even if he _is_ kind of used to it.

“Deal with what?” Minseok says, smiling, and Baekhyun huffs as his lips form a pout. How _does_ he deal with it, Minseok thinks, compared to Baekhyun who treats it like it's not even a problem to begin with, deals with it like he deals with the sunrise each morning by sleeping through it.

(Whereas the thought of Yixing brings warmth and sweetness, slow trickling honey that seeps throughout his blood and flooding Minseok’s system, the thought of Baekhyun brings red hot fire and something _burning_ , curled toes and clenched stomach and _frustration_. It’s stupid, _he’s_ stupid --Minseok and Baekhyun _both--_ and Minseok hates himself for his own torn heart completely because he’s been pulled into two separate orbits and he’s not entirely sure if he wants to be let go from either.)

Minseok sighs through his nose. “I just... don’t.”

 

 

⚾

 

 

“Your pitching has been better,” Jongdae comments offhandedly, while Minseok warms up in the back of the bullpen, slinging balls incessantly against the far wall, lacking in the comforting _thump_ Yixing’s mitt supplies. “Lately.” He finishes, lamely.

“Implying it was bad before?” Minseok teases, eyebrow raised, watching the way Jongdae shakes his head.

“Not at all,” he says, and his lips twist, eyes narrowed. “There’s just something… Different.”

“Different how?” Minseok prompts, and winces when the fastball leaves a mark on the far wall. Being scrutinized by Jongdae feels nothing like the way Baekhyun makes it feel, and idly, Minseok realizes, he’s become indifferent to it either way.

Jongdae hums in thought. “More… Flexible, maybe?” He decides on, contemplative. “I mean, your form has always been _good_ but just a little too textbook. It seems to have loosened up a bit?”

Minseok raises his eyebrows, but there’s no scorn in Jongdae’s words --there never is. Jongdae has always been a puppy that’s all bark with no teeth to bite with, so Minseok knows to appreciate the honest feedback for what it is, improvement between teammates, rather than anything insulting.

“In general, actually, you seem more relaxed…” Jongdae notes, and trails off, before realization seemingly dawns on his face. “Oh my _god,_ you’re getting laid!”

Minseok trips on the wind up, ball falling to the ground uselessly. “ _What?_ ” He splutters, cheeks heating. “How could you _possibly_ come to that conclusion?”

“Orgasms are a very relaxing pastime!” Jongdae squeaks out, accusatory as he points a finger of blame in Minseok’s direction. “And my pitching improved too after--”

Jongdae cuts off suddenly, like he’s said something he shouldn't, and Minseok’s brain slowly puts the pieces together as a grin grows across his face.

“Oh,” Minseok says, smirking to prevent himself from smiling to manically. “So you play for the other team.”

Jongdae grunts, although it’s more in a reluctant sort of way than anything uncomfortable.

“Maybe it’s just Junmyeon-hyung thing,” he mumbles, hiding his red face in his hands.

Minseok can’t stop his grin, this time around. “I never said anything about Junmyeon.”

Jongdae’s mouth opens, pauses, closes.

“Kill me,” he says, eventually. “Please.”

Minseok laughs good-naturedly, and tosses the baseball idly in his his glove. “I won't tell if you don’t.”

“Good,” Jongdae relents, sighing. “Because I’m pretty sure Junmyeon gets off on the whole ‘secret relationship’ thing, so don't ruin my love life for me.”

Despite the initial disgust of knowing the kinks of a teammate and friend that Minseok could have lived a long life _without_ , Minseok can’t help the smile that blossoms across his face, poking Jongdae in his side.

“Relationship, huh? Love life?” Minseok waggles his eyebrows, and Jongdae lets out a reluctant laugh, pushing his hand away. “You two are pretty serious, then?”

“Something like that,” Jongdae mumbles, but Minseok knows him well enough to decipher the color on his cheeks as _yes._ “You and… Whoever it is, aren’t?”

Minseok hums noncommittally, shrugging. Truth be told, he doesn't _know_ what he and Baekhyun would even begin to label their… Arrangement, as. They’re not exactly giving each other flowers and holding hands on the way home, but there’s too many messy things between them for it to be entirely no strings attached. As far as Minseok knows, they just… _are_ , using each other to fill up the phantom third space that neither of them are risky enough to fill with what’s meant to actually fit it.

“Kind of,” he answers cryptically, and watches Baekhyun grin at Yixing from the mound as they manage to strike Sehun out in the practice match, throwing a thumbs up.

“So is it Baekhyun or Yixing?” Jongdae asks, rushed like it’s been on the tip of his tongue but he’d been too afraid to say it. Minseok gives him a _look._ “What? Oh come on, hyung, it has to be _one_ of them.” He watches Minseok carefully, searches his face. “Holy shit, _both_?”

“Jongdae?” Minseok prompts, sighing. “Stop talking.”

“Your turn, hyung,” Baekhyun says, pulling his cap off as he wipes the sweat back and wordlessly tossing his glove onto the bench, stretching out his wrist and Minseok can do nothing but _stare_. Baekhyun cocks his head at the silence. “What?”

“Definitely Baekhyun, then,” Jongdae mumbles, and Minseok has no qualms about cuffing him over the back of his head with his mitt, smirking as he hears Jongdae’s painful splutter and hyperbolic whining from behind him, heading out to the mound.

 _Everything okay?_ Yixing asks with lilt of his head, and Minseok nods, watching as Jongin walks up to the plate and impatiently taps his bat into the dirt. Yixing makes the sign for a curveball and moves his mitt to the bottom left corner --Jongin’s always been bad at hitting the balls at the tip of his bat, and Yixing’s always thinking about other’s skills before his own. Breathing deeply, Minseok tries not to think about the way that pitching _feels_ better, somehow, and throws.

 

 

⚾

 

 

With the first game of the season quickly approaching, practice picks up as studying goes down, but Baekhyun still manages to find excuses to pull Minseok into the locker room after everyone’s left and do things that always have Minseok double checking if there are any security cameras. It doesn’t exactly come with the soft comfort of a mattress beneath their entangled bodies, but it does, at the very least, keep the sheets clean.

Either way, despite being oddly disturbing and crossing too many boundaries, Jongdae had been right when he’d said that sex could be relaxing, because it seems to work out knots in Minseok’s body that he hadn’t known had been there to begin with, helping his mind slow down every time Baekhyun’s mouth is on his skin. There’s still an aspect of absent space to it though, somehow, a ghost feeling of a hole in Minseok’s chest that he can’t quite fill, but it passes time quickly enough, keeps his mind off the hundreds of things that race through it, blurring his vision.

Yet nothing is enough to truly kill the nerves as Minseok enters the bullpen with shaking hands, letting Baekhyun push and pull at him as they warm up together, hands searing even through duo-layers of cotton.

“Relax, hyung,” Baekhyun says, and pulls Minseok forward, loosening up his shoulders. “We’re gonna win.”

“And you would know that how?” Minseok asks, unimpressed, with a quirked eyebrow. Baekhyun shrugs, and this time Minseok pulls _him_ forward, continuing to pull and pull and pull.

“Because we’re all aces,” Baekhyun says simply, even as his nose practically touches the dirt. “You, me, Junmyeon-hyung,” he flicks his eyes left, smirking. “And Jongdae, I guess.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Jongdae mumbles, shaking his head as he drinks from his water bottle.

“Every pitcher carries the game in some way,” Baekhyun explains, pulling back up until he’s seated but keeps his feet pressed mirror to Minseok’s. “And I know that none of us are gonna let it fall.”

Minseok bites into his cheek, words failing him, and eventually he just says, “I thought you said you weren’t flexible.”

Baekhyun looks at him, tilts his head, and then his eyelids drop alongside his voice as he says, “I lied.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Jongdae complains, making an _e_ _ugh_ noise. “Can you guys do this literally anywhere else?" He shudders. " _Disgusting_.”

Minseok laughs, and the heat in his belly quickly dissipates as his cheeks colour, shoving Baekhyun lightly with his feet before standing, stretching out his wrist. Baekhyun meets his eyes, and grins, and Minseok grins back --Jongdae just gives another _eugh_.

Junmyeon’s pitching first, as per usual, and Minseok sits with the other two pitchers as they just watch, too transfixed in the game to worry about anything else. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo are some of the best infielders in the league, though, and their speed allows them to tap the first batter out before he reaches second base, the second batter stopping on first base with a pale look on his face. Already, they’re off to a good start --Minseok just hopes they can keep it up.

They manage three strikes by the seventh batter, and only one home run overall. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough, yet Minseok knows they can’t get lost in their complacency; they’ve been overtaken by Hongik in the past, and none of them are keen on letting it happen again.

Baekhyun makes it to the mound for the fifth inning, following Jongdae from the third, and he and Yixing manage to get three strikeouts by the fifth batter, before the third and fourth batters on base can even score a home-run. Baekhyun has always glowed on the mound, something about him being destined for the role of pitcher, but here, with the crowd of blue cheering his name and the thrill of a no-run victory for his inning under his belt, he _shines_ , so bright that Minseok almost feels the need to look away. Baekhyun has all the makings of an ace, especially under Yixing’s guiding hand, and, Minseok wonders, as he idly glances to the side of Junmyeon’s face, if Junmyeon knows that too.

Minseok doesn’t manage quite as many strikeouts as easily as Baekhyun had, because Minseok doesn’t have Junmyeon’s speed or Jongdae’s technique or Baekhyun’s accuracy, instead he just has his usual lineup of different types of balls and Yixing’s guidance, to hopefully pull him through. It doesn’t help that Minseok’s as predictably nervous as always, but the infielders seem to pick up the slack where he’s lacking, scoring two tag outs before the batters can make it to home base. Han had always said that a team is only as strong as its weakest link, but maybe that’s not entirely true, and the team is only as strong as its _strongest_.

By the eighth inning, the score is 7-7, and it’s Yonsei’s last opportunity to score any points. If they don’t manage it here, then they either tie, or Hongik wins entirely.

It’s not something they’re prepared to do.

They’d all been striked out in the sixth inning by Hongik’s southpaw pitcher, the only switch hitter in their team who could handle it being Kyungsoo. They’d managed a few on base, but no home runs, and it’s ultimately what had lead to their score dropping.

The real problem, however, lies in the disruption of their batting order, because now they start with Chanyeol batting first, rather than Kyungsoo. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s not ideal, either; Chanyeol’s… large presence, makes him shit at sneaking, and even so his long legs prevent him from having the quick speed required to even risk it, half the time. Chanyeol makes it to third, but not before Junmyeon strikes out and Jongin gets tagged on second, leaving Kyungsoo on first base and Chanyeol still stranded right before the home plate. Kyungsoo’s a leadoff, so his hits don’t have the power to get anyone but him and his quick speed to first base. Chanyeol knows this, and that’s why he stays in place, not willing to risk the third strike.

By the time Yixing makes it to the plate, strangely calm, Minseok feels like he’s taken all the nervous energy in his place as he can’t stand still by the batter’s box. If Yixing screws this up, then their chance of a win is over; if Yixing succeeds, then the burden is only passed over to Minseok.

Yixing manages two strikes and three balls before the sixth ball thrown heads straight for the strike zone. Minseok’s expecting a power hit, something of desperation just to give Chanyeol enough time, but instead Yixing bunts it, sending it short as the infielders scramble because they must have been expecting a long ball too. Either way, it does the intended effect, and Chanyeol manages to make it home, bumping the score up to 8-7, Yonsei’s way. Minseok bites his cheek --it’s good, but it’s not _enough_. Hongik’s strength lies in their batting and ability to retain energy over the course of the game, and in the ninth inning, he doesn’t think their team will manage well enough to prevent them from scoring less than two.

Minseok’s shaking in the batter’s box, but by the time he actually steps up to the mound he’s stilled. Minseok wouldn’t be third batter if he weren’t one of the best hitters on the team, and he’s never allowed himself to fail that expectation, hands shifting around the base of his bat. They’ve pulled out the southpaw for this inning, too, and Minseok’s not too used to it, but he’s spent enough time watching Baekhyun to be familiar with it. First swing’s a foul that --thankfully-- doesn’t get caught, Minseok being too hasty, and then two balls, and a strike, giving him enough time to think.

Despite being a _good_ batter, Minseok’s never had that much pressure from being third batter, before. His job has always simply been to push himself and those ahead of him along the diamond, not prevent them from losing altogether. It’s not like it’s the first time their order has ever been messed up or Minseok has felt this stress, but it’s the first game of the season, and it’s been a while.

Plus, it’s not like he _wants_ to lose.

All Minseok’s life, it had always been Han-Yixing-Minseok, and that had _worked_ , because there was no reliance on Minseok to push them home, always relying on the batters ahead of him to get to base without striking out. But now, the order’s all fumbled, and Minseok hastily wipes his palms on his pants, just to get the sweat off, because maybe he’s never really dealt all that well with expectations either.

The pitcher throws, and it’s a fastball right into the strike zone, Minseok knows, because he’s watched the way this southpaw has relied on his speed all game, and it’s that same arrogance that’s going to make Hongik lose. Minseok’s never had the skills of his other team members, or the speed or the strength, he’s always just been Minseok; oddly consistent, and oddly reliable --he refuses to let that change now.

He swings, and it’s no out-of-the-park ball, but it’s enough to push them all one base around, Kyungsoo on third, Yixing on second, Minseok on first. It’s not much, but it is _enough_ , and now the baton’s been passed to the cleanup hitter, who’s used to a job like this.

Baekhyun looks so strange at the plate, especially from the field, and he doesn’t look like the sort of slugger that’s going to push Yonsei’s victory. He’s too scrawny, his uniform too big, the determined line of his mouth too stretched. The helmet seems too big on his head, and he just looks like a kid with clothes three-sizes too big, unable to fill the expectations set out for him.

Thing is, Minseok knows, Baekhyun never _does_ reach expectation; he always goes above and beyond them.

Three balls, two strikes --a walk is good, because it’ll get them Kyungsoo home, but even then it’s still too risky. Two points won’t get them a definitive lead against Hongik’s batting lineup, and judging by the sharpened look in Baekhyun’s eyes, he knows this. He _is_ the cleanup hitter, after all, he can’t rely on the batters ahead of him to slug like he can.

Then, Baekhyun does something completely unexpected.

He switches sides.

“What the hell?” The first-basemen mumbles, confused, and Minseok flicks him a quick glance because _that makes two of them._ He’s never seen Baekhyun bat from the right of the plate before --even though he _is_ a southpaw-- and hadn’t even known he was a switch hitter to begin with. Judging by the smug look on Baekhyun’s face, he’s been keeping this trick under wraps for a while, and had kind of counted on it disrupting the fielders just enough to give him an edge.

“Unbelievable,” Minseok mumbles, and when he sets his face straight forward, ready to run, Yixing is looking back at him, and they grin at each other. Even if Baekhyun's pulling god knows what out of his sleeve at the last minute, Minseok still knows he's going to get them to where they need to be.

Baekhyun’s newfound switch hitting pulls the intended effect off, and the southpaw fumbles in the face of a cleanup hitter that can handle his throws, faulting his courage just enough to make his pitch clumsy, slow, right into the centre of Baekhyun’s bat.

The slam of a baseball against metal is so loud it rings like a gunshot in Minseok’s ears, but he has no time to care about that, pushing himself to second base as Kyungsoo easily takes home. The ball’s still in the air at this stage, hitting the field only once Minseok touches third, Yixing taking the third point for their team for the current inning. The right fielder scoops the ball up quickly from the grass, but the distance is too far for a quick throw, Minseok sprints like he’s never sprinted before in his life, and skids across the plate right as he hears the thud of a baseball in the catcher’s mitt above him.

“Safe!” The umpire calls out, and Minseok’s palms are rough and raw and bleeding from where he’s scraped them along the dirt but he doesn’t even care, leaping into the air with a triumphant grin on his face as he cheers with the rest of his team members behind the plate. Baekhyun’s stranded on third base, all alone on the diamond, but his face is flushed, chest heaving. Even across the field, Baekhyun meets Minseok’s eyes, and he tilts his head before grinning, as if to say _are you proud of me?_

Proud doesn’t even begin to cut it.

“He’s amazing,” Yixing says, also breathless, and Minseok gasps before grinning, self-indulgently leaning into Yixing’s side.

“Yeah,” Minseok agrees, flushed, carefully watching Yixing’s awe-struck face as Baekhyun smiles at them from the diamond. “He really is.”

 

 

⚾

 

 

Junmyeon holds out against Hongik in the ninth inning, as expected from their ace, leaving the game at 10-8, Yonsei’s win. They’re too energetic from the rush of the win and the adrenaline that’s still left over from the high tensions all game for the bus back to be anything but a ruckus, and Yixing dumps himself into the aisle seat beside Minseok with a grin on his face, unable to do anything but helplessly smile at each other in their giddy victory. A win in the first game of the season against someone they’ve lost to plenty in the past is nothing but a good omen, and Yonsei’s team isn’t arrogant enough to take it as anything but a sign that they can only go upwards from here. It’ll boost the team’s morale, and reinvigorate their energy, and hopefully it will be the first step of many to get them to nationals. (As well as to help kick Korea university’s butt in the annual sports festival in the fall.)

Baekhyun enters the bus, taking the row of seats behind Minseok and Yixing, and Yixing turns to him with a _hey!_ Before he starts slapping Baekhyun’s shoulder over the top of the seat, making Baekhyun go _ow ow ow_ until he eventually stops.

“What the hell was that!?” Yixing asks, half-anger, half pure awe, mouth forming a neat _o_ as it hangs open. “Since when could you switch hit?”

“I have many hidden talents, hyung,” Baekhyun says, smirking, and flicks his eyes to Minseok with a suggestive lilt to his lips, only causing Minseok to roll his eyes in response. “And to think that was only the first game of the season.”

“I can’t believe you!” Yixing says, laughing in pure disbelief, and he and Baekhyun launch into some summary of the game, commenting on the southpaw pitcher and how they’ll have to try and get Baekhyun’s speed on par with that, too. Minseok braces his elbows along the edge of his seat, resting his head in his arms and smiling at the two of them, but only before he sinks back down, content to listen to Yixing and Baekhyun chatting animatedly over the roar of the back of the bus, pressing his forehead against the glass and feeling the engine rumble beneath him.

By the time they make it back to the dorms, Yixing is happily talking to Qian, about something in rapidfire mandarin, looking animated and _happy_ , still thriving off the victory. Baekhyun jogs to close the distance between him and Minseok and bumps their shoulders together.

“So, hyung,” Baekhyun starts, mumbling right into Minseok’s ear as they walk shoulder-to-shoulder, pinkies brushing every now and then. “When do I get my reward?”

Minseok snorts, turning so that he’s facing Baekhyun. “Your reward?”

“Oh, you know,” Baekhyun replies, smirking, tilting his head a little as his eyes cut right through Minseok. “For winning us the game, for being amazing, the usual.”

“Right,” Minseok huffs, laughing, and presses his hand against Baekhyun’s hipbone, turning so that it’ll only look like he’s whispering, hands hidden in the press of their bodies. “Maybe later,” he says, enjoying the way Baekhyun shivers. “And you can show me some more of your hidden talents.”

Baekhyun actually stops breathing at that, and Minseok pulls back, laughing delightedly. He’s pretty sure he hears a _I don’t even want to know_ from a voice that sounds suspiciously like Jongdae’s as he walks past to the dorm steps, but he doesn’t pay it any mind to it as he catches Yixing waiting for them at the door to the dorms, watching them.

“What?” Minseok asks, confused from the way Yixing’s face seems a little lost, somehow, all the happy energy from before washed away. Baekhyun starts bothering Kyungsoo as they walk up to their rooms, his laughter echoing about the stairwell as Kyungsoo tries to hit him and misses. Yixing’s still _looking_ at Minseok, searching his face for whatever he wants to find, and, for the first time ever, Minseok feels uncomfortably transparent beneath his gaze.

“Nothing,” Yixing relents eventually, smiling weakly, and he jerks his head towards the rest of the dorms. “Let’s go get ready.”

Minseok agrees, but it doesn’t stop him from watching Yixing’s back the whole way up to their shared room, tracing the shape of his _10_ with his eyes and wondering what it was Yixing wanted to find when he looked at Minseok before, and even worse, wondering what he thought about it if he did.

 

 

⚾

 

 

A victory means celebratory BBQ for the team from the university and too many drinks on Junmyeon’s poor tab. Jongdae has no qualms about saying that Junmyeon is the ace and the captain and that he’s _meant_ to carry the team with a beer in his hand, a drunken slur, and an arm around Junmyeon’s neck. Minseok just watches them with a small smile on his face and wonders how he hadn’t noticed it _sooner_.

Minseok lets his underclassman pour his drinks as they joke and yell around the round table, the combined noise from Baekhyun, Jongdae and Chanyeol seeming to imitate the roar of the audience in stadium today. Throughout it all Minseok remains mostly silent, content to watch, but it doesn’t simmer down the feeling of _happiness_ in his chest, merely keeps it bubbling at the edge of the pot.

Minseok excuses himself to the bathroom after a few too many beers, and as he squints into the mirror he figures he’s probably a little more drunk than he’d like to be, promising to slow down from here on out. Minseok turns around when Baekhyun enters, but he doesn’t have time to ask him what he’s doing before Baekhyun’s pressing him back against the sink and kissing him, moving their lips together languidly.

“I want my reward,” Baekhyun slurs, and Minseok laughs even at the cold feeling of water seeping through his jeans, legs hanging off the edge of the sink.

“We’re a little too drunk for that now,” Minseok says, Baekhyun humming as he presses a kiss against Minseok’s jaw. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” Baekhyun agrees, yawning. “But I’ll be holding you to that.”

“Of course you will be,” Minseok snorts, and they may be a little too drunk and a little too in a public space for anything much more than kissing, but kissing feels like enough for now.

“We should go back out there before somebody notices,” Minseok mumbles, arms wound around Baekhyun’s neck.

“Mhmm,” he drawls lazily, kissing the line of Minseok’s neck.

“Baekhyun.” Minseok tries.

“Mhmfm,”

“ _Baekhyun_.”

“But it’s so _nice_ hyung,” Baekhyun whines, pulling his --rather sloppy when drunk-- mouth back, pressing his forehead into Minseok’s shoulder and sighing. “Being a part of the team and winning and-- and _you_ \-- I’m just so happy.”

“I know Baekhyunnie,” Minseok says softly, smoothing down the wayward strands of Baekhyun’s hair with his fingertips. “Me too.”

“But it’s not enough, is it?” Baekhyun slurs, licking his too-dry lips as he pulls back and stares at Minseok, searching his eyes. “Me and you. ‘S not enough for us.”

“No,” Minseok answers, quietly, tracing his fingers down the side of Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun leans into the touch. “It isn’t.”

“Y’know why you and I understand each other, hyung?” Baekhyun slurs, eyelids drooping as he sighs against Minseok’s hand on his face.

“No,” Minseok whispers, quiet as if he’s afraid of the words behind the sound. “Why?”

“Because we’re both too greedy for our own good,” Baekhyun reveals, taking Minseok’s hand off his face and kissing the knuckles, his fingertips, his palm. It feels more intimate than anything else they’ve ever done before, and suddenly, with Baekhyun between his thighs and the heavy look in his eyes, Minseok feels overwhelmed with affection and the conflicting clash against it, the wave that resonates in harmony with Baekhyun’s words and whispers that Baekhyun never _will_ be enough, no matter how much Minseok likes him. “I thought it would get easier,” Baekhyun admits, tracing out the spaces between Minseok’s fingers with his own, ghosting over every dip and callous and curve. “But having you only makes me want him more.”

Minseok swallows, and chokes out, “I know.” Because that’s what it comes down to, in the end, isn’t it? There’s too much space to fill and neither Minseok nor Baekhyun are big enough to fill it, wanting what they can have but wanting what they can’t even more. Each day with Baekhyun only stands to remind Minseok that it’s another day _without_ Yixing, and he doesn’t know how much longer their relationship will be able to go on for, like this, while their simultaneous want for the third member weighs heavily enough to tip their equilibrium over the edge.

And sometimes Minseok does want to risk it, really, wants to drag Yixing into their unconventional, unlabelled mess and see if he’ll be willing to fill out the space, wants to kiss Yixing just to see how he’ll react and wants to see Yixing kiss Baekhyun too. It’s a strange thing, somehow, wanting _two_ instead of one, but it also seems to just make _sense_ , even if neither Yixing nor Baekhyun do themselves. Yixing has been a solid, slow-growing presence in Minseok’s life since he’d first transferred to Yonsei, and Baekhyun had demanded himself to be made into one, wormed himself into Minseok’s heart and made room right alongside Yixing. They’re nothing alike, but they’re also startlingly similar, and Minseok doesn’t know how much further he can continue loving one while the other only slips further and further from his grasp.

“Come on,” Minseok mumbles, pushes himself off the sink and fixes his collar quickly in the mirror, wraps his fingers around Baekhyun’s wrist and tugs. “Any longer and they’ll probably send out a search party.”

Baekhyun chuckles at that, and lets Minseok drag him away from the sinks and out the bathroom, hands disconnecting as soon as they’re back into the restaurant’s main space, walking back to the table together. Baekhyun seems quieter, this time around, and when Minseok watches him, from the corner of his eye he spots Yixing, looking at him too. Yixing turns, catching Minseok’s gaze across the table, and Minseok doesn’t know how to make heads or tails of the strangely distant look on Yixing’s face, nowhere even close to a smile. It goes away as quickly as it had come when Yixing turns to Chanyeol and starts talking to him about something, laughing happily, but Minseok wonders at what stage he'd become the transparent one, and when it was Yixing who’d turned opaque.

 

 

⚾

 

 

The night ends a little too late for Minseok’s exhausted liking but sleep-deprivation is a familiar companion when one’s life consists of roughly ten-percent studying and ninety-percent baseball --give or take a few outlier activities, like _Baekhyun_. But it’s a Friday night, so they should all be okay, sleepily stumbling back to the dorms in separate groups since they’d stopped drinking hours ago, ready to rest up for a day off from practice tomorrow.

“Wait for me,” Baekhyun says suddenly, and turns back into the restaurant, mumbling something about drinking too much water and tiny bladders. Yixing yawns, leaning against the wall while he waits, and even though it’s nearly May his breath turns to fog when he cranes his neck up, squinting at the sky. This isn’t the somewhat happy-go-lucky Yixing Minseok is somewhat used to, the one that handles all the _doing_ while Minseok handles the overthinking, but this is a quieter Yixing, a more burdened one, the shadows weighing on his back so tangible Minseok can make out the shape of them even in the darkness.

Once again, somehow, it seems like they've switched positions.

“Is something wrong?” Minseok blurts, because it bothers him to a predictable amount, Yixing’s neck snapping sideways and blinking, regarding Minseok carefully. The silence settles thickly in the air.

“I saw you kissing him,” Yixing says, eventually, and Minseok doesn’t even need to ask who he’s referring too as his stomach sinks beneath the concrete beneath his feet and further, dropping out as his face turns so red it _burns_. “In the bathroom, before, I saw... I saw.” Yixing’s Korean is clear, accentless, clipped in a way that tells Minseok Yixing is probably a lot more sober than he’d like to be, right around now. Minseok gulps. “I mean I guess… I guess I’ve always known for a while now, but…” He trails off, biting his lip. “Baekhyun can’t replace Han. You know that, right?”

Minseok startles, because _that_ certainly isn’t what he’d been expecting, blinking rapidly in confusion as his terrified mind stumbles to pick up the pace again. Baekhyun isn’t a replacement for Han, Minseok knows, because… because Baekhyun doesn’t bat first, because Baekhyun sucks at calculus and smiles rectangularly, wears a _4_ and not a _7_ , because Baekhyun has never been good at filling out expectations but he _is_ good at filling out empty space. Baekhyun isn’t Han, and Minseok had never ever really wanted him to be, because Baekhyun is Baekhyun, and to Minseok, that had always been the original problem to begin with.

“Of course I know that,” he says, and furrows his brow, because Yixing still doesn’t look relieved, face taut, eyes wary. “Does it bother you?” He asks, overwhelmed with an unfamiliar courage that he doesn’t know the origin of. “That Baekhyun and I-- that two men… were kissing...”

“ _What_.” Yixing says, but it’s not really a question. “Of _course_ I don’t care about that, I mean, I didn’t mind it when you and Han were toge--”

“Wait, _what_?” Minseok cuts in, and this time it’s _his_ turn to be indignant. “Han and I-- we never--” Minseok makes a face. “ _No_.”

“You… weren’t?” Yixing asks hesitantly, blinking in confusion, and his mouth hangs open slightly, a neat, round _o_. “But you… you two were so close, I always figured…”

“He was _your_ best friend,” Minseok says, with an edge of scorn he wishes he could take back, because Han and Yixing had always had that level of companionship that Minseok could never quite match. Even if he and Han _were_ the same age, Han and Yixing shared a language, a culture, a level of adoration between a senior and his lowerclassman that was rooted further down than what Minseok could ever hope reach.

“Well, yeah, but I--” Yixing rubs a hand against his temple, and sighs. “Oh man, this whole time I thought you were getting over Han because you two--”

“No?” Minseok says, almost uncomfortable at the prospect, unsure. “I mean-- I miss Han because he was my best friend too…?”

“I can’t believe this,” Yixing says, and laughs disbelievingly, leaning against the wall for support. “Did we spend all those years feeling excluded in our own friendship?”

“I think so,” Minseok says, and laughs exasperatedly, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm as his body still braces itself on the edge of fight or flight, knowing that the danger hasn’t quite passed over, not yet.

A beat of silence passes. “So you never liked Han?”

“Not… not like _that_ , at least,” Minseok answers honestly, breath hitching, and then, “Han wasn’t the one I liked.” He licks his lips, heart pounding in his ears, but it's already too late, there's no backing out now. Baekhyun had been right that it will never be _enough_ , but Minseok doesn't even know whether _enough_ is possible yet or not. “The one I still like.”

“What?” Yixing asks, semi-confused, brow scrunching before releasing as realisation dawns on his face, loosens his features. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah,” Minseok says, laughing sheepishly. “Surprise.”

“But you…” Yixing fumbles. “And Baekhyun--”

“It’s…” _Complicated_ isn’t exactly the right word, because everything with Baekhyun is so label-less and carefree it’s almost too _simple_. “Different.” Minseok decides on, eventually. “We’re not really… exclusive?” He tries, and shuffling from foot to foot, throws every doubtful thought aside and says, “At least, not when it comes to you…?”

“ _Oh_.” Yixing says, and maybe Minseok should feel bad about throwing Baekhyun under the bus like this, but he’s under there too, so it should be alright. “So Baekhyunnie does too…?”

“Yeah,” Minseok says, smiling lopsidedly, and laughs self-deprecatingly, another, “Surprise.”

Yixing lets out a breath of air at that, and stares at the ground with wide-eyes like he can’t remember how to think properly. Minseok can relate.

“Before,” Yixing starts after a silence that stretches out for _years_ , fingers tapping out an unheard beat on his thigh as he _fidgets_ , wrinkling his nose. “You asked me if it bothers me, if-- if you and Baekhyunnie kiss.” Minseok nods slowly, hesitant, unsure of where it’s going. “Well, would it bother him if you and I did too?”

It feels like a slap to the face, but the following aftershock is filled with so much Minseok doesn’t know how to handle it, the feelings in his chest overflowing as it boils over and leaves warmth and giddiness and _nervousness_ flooding throughout his chest. Minseok can’t remember how to breathe, because the idea that all this time, Yixing has thought Minseok was getting over Han and then getting with Baekhyun, the idea that Yixing could think Minseok had a level of exclusion that Yixing could never fit into, is _preposterous_ \--yet Minseok can’t really blame him, because he’d never given Yixing reason to believe otherwise, always thinking that Yixing saw him as a friend and nothing more.

But that doesn’t just magically take Baekhyun out of the equation, because at the end of the day, whether they want him to be or not, he’s a part of this too, and Minseok knows that sans the assholery that comes with leaving Baekhyun behind, it would only make the feeling of something _missing_ be that much stronger.

“Not if you kiss him too,” Minseok says, eventually, and Yixing pauses, breath fogging in front of his face as he seems to mull over it, biting his cheek.

“I think…” He swallows, silence heavy, and Minseok inches forward just that little bit beyond his self-control, swallowed up  by his own anticipation. “I think that can be arranged.”

Kissing Yixing is nothing like kissing Baekhyun, because Yixing is careful where Baekhyun is nothing but over-eagerness and blind trust. Yixing, who always reads the situation, changes the game, calls the shots, is almost unfamiliarly hesitant with Minseok, bringing a careful hand to the back of his neck as he coaxes Minseok’s lips open, soft.

“Well I’d ask if I was interrupting something but my guess would be _yes_ ,” Baekhyun says, and Minseok breaks away like he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar right before dinner. Baekhyun’s smiling smugly, head-tilted, but Minseok knows enough to see the coldness in his eyes, dark and aching. No doubt he feels betrayed, to some extent, and Minseok just laughs at sheer absurdity of it, pushing Yixing towards Baekhyun.

“Surprise,” Minseok says, and thankfully Yixing can take a hint as he grins at the clearly confused Baekhyun before leaning down and kissing him. “Turns out we all play for the same team.”

Baekhyun is, at first, comically startled, eyes wide as Yixing presses against him, but it quickly seeps away as his eyelids slip shut and Baekhyun winds his arms around Yixing’s neck, pulling him closer.

Baekhyun and Yixing are grinning against each other’s mouths, and Minseok’s grinning too as he can't tear his eyes away, Baekhyun wrinkling his nose after Yixing pulls back and kisses the tip of it, giggling.

“Wait,” Baekhyun says, eyes impossibly wide and vulnerable as he holds a palm against Yixing’s chest. “You… Like me?”

“I do,” Yixing says, reaching out and tugging Minseok forward so that they’re all shoulder-to-shoulder, smiling a sort of smile that Minseok’s never seen before. “Both of you.”

It feels more _real_ somehow, when Baekhyun is here too, but Baekhyun pressing his mouth against Minseok’s isn't exactly what Minseok had expected, startling before slipping into the familiarity of it, Baekhyun communicating his sense of satisfaction where words fail him. Minseok kisses back to say _me too_.

“Why are we still out here?” Yixing blurts, suddenly, and when Minseok flicks his eyes open Yixing’s staring at the point where he and Baekhyun’s lips are connected, face pink; Minseok smirks into the kiss.

“Good point,” Baekhyun relents, pulling away from Minseok and pressing himself against Yixing’s arm, tipping his head onto his shoulder. “It’s cold and it’s late and I may or may not know some _great_ methods for warming up.”

Baekhyun’s grin is cocky to cover up the pure glee behind it, and Minseok can’t help but laugh as Baekhyun pulls him in, too, intertwining their arms. They’re all a little too old to get away with things like _this_ in public, but it’s dark and it’s late and, well, it’s not like any of them really care anyway.

 

 

⚾

 

 

Still drained from the emotional rollercoaster and the game, crashing into Minseok’s dorm room and pushing the two singles together to make enough space doesn’t turn into much beyond lazily kissing each other, laughing when Yixing scrunches up when his neck is breathed on or holding back the grins on their faces when Baekhyun turns out to be very, _very_ ticklish. It feels like something new and unknown entirely but in a way it somehow feels like nothing has changed, either, other than the fact that Minseok feels content in a way he never has before, feels like it's finally  _enough_ for his greedy, greedy heart.

The morning, however, heralds different things, as Minseok wakes up to the sight of Yixing and Baekhyun kissing one another, doing nothing to help his familiar pal morning wood. Minseok wants to look away, but he _can’t_ , especially not when Baekhyun rolls over until he’s on top of Yixing and starts peeling his shirt off from the night before, Yixing happily lending a hand.

Minseok, not wanting to miss out, grunts and sits up, pressing his lips to the back of Baekhyun’s neck and tracing the moles the dot down his back with his tongue. His mouth tastes like stale beer and BBQ, though, so Minseok wrinkles his nose before pulling back, sliding off the bed.

“Where are you going?” Baekhyun asks, eyes wide as he glances over his own shoulder to look at Minseok, as if he feels uncomfortable to just be one-on-one with Yixing. Minseok understands, because this is about the three of them now, not just two, and exclusivity isn’t something any of them want either for themselves or the others.

“To brush my teeth,” Minseok says, and throws the bundled up shirt Baekhyun had taken off moments before at his chest, grinning. “You guys should too.”

Baekhyun and Yixing share a look as if to say _this guy_ , but they know Minseok well enough to recognise an ultimatum when they see one, smiling at each other as they follow him to the bathrooms at the end of the hall. It’s still early --well, it’s before _ten_ \-- so nobody is awake yet, making it blessedly easy for Baekhyun to exit their room with them and borrow one of Minseok’s spare toothbrushes --which he only has because they’re cheaper in a variety pack, not because he’s anal, he argues, much to Baekhyun and Yixing’s amusement. They spend time at the sink brushing their teeth as Baekhyun and Yixing pulls faces at each other in the mirror and Minseok just grins around his toothbrush, shaking his head even as he spits out water down the sink.

Mouth tasting slightly better, Minseok has no qualms about pushing Yixing up against the sink and kissing him, wanting to have done this for days, weeks, months, _years_ , desperate and hungry in a way that doesn’t suit the softness of early morning.

“ _Guys_ ,” Baekhyun says, shifting uncomfortably as he _squirms_ , face flushed. “Maybe not in the public bathroom?”

“Right,” Minseok agrees, pulling back reluctantly as Yixing just stares into space, dazed. “Too dirty.”

“Yes hyung,” Baekhyun deadpans, with an amused smirk on his face. “That’s the problem here. The dirtiness.”

“Shut up,” Minseok says, rolling his eyes, but gladly lets himself be pulled out by the wrist by a cackling Baekhyun as they stumble their way back into Yixing and Minseok’s room, Baekhyun pressing Yixing against the door to shut it and kissing him.

“I find it funny that the library and the locker rooms is fine but you draw the line at a bathroom,” Baekhyun notes idly, once Minseok and Yixing somehow end up on the bed with Yixing’s mouth on Minseok’s neck, Baekhyun idly tracing patterns down Yixing's bare shoulders with his fingertips.

Yixing freezes, draws back. “You guys had sex in the locker rooms?”

“From what I know of our team, hyung,” Baekhyun says, smiling. “You’re about the only player who hasn’t.”

Minseok laughs at the look on Yixing’s face --somewhere between hurt, disappointment, and _disgust_. “I feel bad that we’ve been monopolising it from them, then,” Minseok tells Baekhyun, slapping him on the shoulder. Baekhyun shrugs, but Yixing is still frowning.

“If you feel bad about missing out,” Baekhyun says, crawling forward until he’s pressed flush against Minseok and directly underneath Yixing. “We can always start including you too.”

Minseok laughs, but Yixing doesn’t, and it’s enough to have it falling short as Yixing pulls back and Minseok sits up, Baekhyun doing the same beside him, tilting his head.

“Something wrong?” Minseok asks, tentatively and reaches forward to take Yixing’s hand, tracing the callouses there idly.

“It’s just…” Yixing trails off, sheepish, and scratches behind his ear. “You guys have been… doing stuff without me, and now that I’m here I feel kind of--”

“Don’t.” Baekhyun says simply, and reaches out to take Yixing’s other hand, tugging him forward. “We’ve always wanted you here, hyung. We were just too afraid to ask.”

“We don’t have to rush things if you need time to think about it,” Minseok says, gently loosening his grip and waiting for Yixing to pull his hand back. If anything, he only tightens his hold on Minseok’s hand just that bit further. “It’s weird and new and different and--”

“Has anyone ever told you you think too much?” Yixing says suddenly, surging forward and cupping his palms around Minseok’s jaw as he kisses him, long and deep just to shut him up.

“I know right!!!” Baekhyun exclaims, and Yixing pulls back, laughing against Minseok’s lips. “All he ever does is make things complicated.”

Minseok thinks to say this _is_ complicated, but the concept of _complicated_ doesn’t exist to people like Byun Baekhyun, who sees the entire world the exact way he _wants_ to see it.

Instead, Minseok just sighs, before taking Yixing’s face in his hands and forcing him to make eye contact.

“My point still stands,” he mumbles, watching the way Yixing’s gaze flicks from Minseok’s eyes to his lips and then his eyes again, oddly flattering in the scheme of things. “Baekhyunnie and I have been dealing with this… _all_ of this, longer than you have,” Baekhyun hums in acknowledgement. “We don’t have to rush into things if you’re not ready.”

“Okay,” Yixing relents, sighing slightly and leaning into Minseok’s touch as his hand raises to hook around Minseok’s wrist. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Sooooo,” Baekhyun starts, idly resting his chin in his hands as he watches Minseok and Yixing kiss. “How slow do we mean by ‘slow’?” He points an accusatory finger and waggles it between them. “Because I dunno how much more _slow_ I can handle if you two keep going like this.”

Yixing laughs, and says, “Is he always like this?”

“You should know that by now,” Baekhyun says, at the same time Minseok answers, “Pretty much.”

Minseok grins. “But you get used to it.”

“Okay but really, like,” Baekhyun pulls a face. “Is sucking you off too much?”

Yixing laughs at the same time his cheek’s turn red, shaking his head. “Just a little.”

Baekhyun pouts in disappointment, but doesn’t push it. “Kissing is nice.” He decides upon, eventually, and Yixing shows his agreement by humming and doing exactly that.

They fall into a mess of limbs and shirtless-ness and Minseok doesn’t really know who’s kissing who or _where_ anymore but he doesn’t really care either, losing himself in the feeling of happiness and completion, of a slow Saturday morning and the too-wide grin on Baekhyun’s face as he kisses Yixing’s forehead, his nose, his dimple and the corner of his mouth. Minseok wants time to freeze so he can just stay like this forever, remaining in stasis at the climax of the ninth inning, right before they take gold. He’s so overwhelmed with love and affection and fondness he doesn’t even know what to do with it, anymore, wondering how his life ever amounted to anything even half as wonderful as _this_.

And it’s almost impossible to imagine, in hindsight, that Minseok and Baekhyun had ever managed to find a compromise other than what they have right now, ever managed to bury their feelings that have long since been destined to sprout from the dirt they’d packed them beneath and _grow_. It seems silly that Minseok had ever considered any other possibility than this when the three of them just work so _well_ together, the perfect unit.

Yixing-Minseok-Baekhyun; second, third and fourth.

The further their skin-on-skin touching goes, the harder it gets for Minseok to work with the half-hardness in his pants, willing for his dick to calm down for just one goddamn second. Jongdae might have always joked that Minseok’s uptightness stems from his previous lack of a sex life, but Minseok will always have to deal with the fact that he’d probably been right.

“Touch me,” Baekhyun gasps against Yixing’s lips. “Anyone, _anywhere--_ just-- if you want--  _please_.”

And Yixing nods in understanding before almost curiously palming the front of Baekhyun’s pants, eyes lighting up in delight at the desperate croon Baekhyun lets out, tilting his head back and groaning unabashedly. Minseok idly worries that someone might hear them outside their room, but he’s also just that little too bit transfixed in the curve of Baekhyun’s throat to care.

Yixing keeps palming him, gaining conviction, and Baekhyun starts grinding into his hand unashamedly, letting out a long string of _very_ memorable noises and curse words as Minseok’s unable to help himself, crawling forward and wrapping his arms around Baekhyun’s middle as he presses his chest to Baekhyun’s back, kissing the sensitive spot beneath his ear and along the curve of his neck, sucking a mark into the dark skin, tanned from years of baseball spent playing in the sun.

Then just like that, Baekhyun cries out sharply, and Minseok and Yixing both pause suddenly, watching him curiously.

Yixing laughs, once. “Did you just--”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Baekhyun says, embarrassed, and hides his face behind his hands to stop the redness on his cheeks from showing. Minseok’s twitching lips break into a grin. “I was just-- I was just so _overwhelmed_ \--”

“Aw Baekhyunnie~” Minseok teases, digging his fingers into Baekhyun’s side, making him wriggle against Yixing’s lap. “It’s okay. We can always work on your stamina later.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Baekhyun grumbles, and peeks out from the spaces between his fingers. “At least I didn’t stain the sheets.”

Minseok laughs easily at that, kissing Baekhyun’s cheek. “So proud of you.” He teases, and Baekhyun grumbles indignantly before pulling his hand backs just to pinch Minseok’s hand, Minseok nipping his ear in retaliation.

Yixing shifts, and clears his throat, enough to have Minseok pausing, looking at him expectantly as he figures Baekhyun probably does the same, head cocked.

“I know I said uh. Slow, but--” He shifts again, sighing through his teeth, and winces before cracking one eye open. “Still slow but maybe-- maybe a little bit faster?”

Baekhyun grins all too easily at that, and presses his mouth against Yixing, Yixing’s eyes slipping shut as he sighs through his nose in contentment and Minseok goes to move, but Baekhyun’s hand reaches out and tightens around his bicep, keeping him in place.

“My turn,” he says, grinning mischievously, and licks his lips before trailing a hand down Yixing’s abs, fingernails scraping at the coarse hairs that disappear beneath his belt. “This okay?”

Yixing sucks in a breath, and nods. “Yeah,” he says, licking his lips. “I-- _yeah_.”

Baekhyun smiles, and begins unbuttoning Yixing’s pants, pulling down his fly. “Just a boring ol’ handjob,” he says, sighing almost disappointingly. Yixing laughs.

“You find handjobs boring?”

“Uh, _duh_ ,” Baekhyun says, and rolls his eyes. “I’ve been giving myself a handjob like, every night for the past seven years. They quickly get boring.” He tilts his head, humming in thought, and looks down at his hands. “But I _do_ want to try something.”

He turns so that he’s no longer on Yixing’s lap but still with him and Minseok on either side, facing each other while Baekhyun leans back on his heels between them, Minseok by the bedhead and Yixing at the end of the bed.

“This okay?” Baekhyun asks, right hand poised at the top of Minseok’s belt. Minseok frowns.

“I mean, yeah, but--” he scrunches his brow. “How come I get your non-dominant hand?” It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that enjoyable at all, in the scheme of things, even if Baekhyun's determined otherwise.

Baekhyun tips his head back, bursting into laughter. His laugh really is one of the most beautiful things in the world, and Minseok turns sheepish when Yixing smiles at the softness on Minseok's face, partly in empathy. Minseok's just glad that all his feelings about stupid Byun Baekhyun are shared. 

“Remember how I can switch hit?” Baekhyun says conversationally, using both hands to free Minseok’s dick from his underpants and doing the same for Yixing before placing one hand on one thigh from each. “Well, that’s my secret,” Baekhyun wraps his hand around them both and tugs sharply in unison, and Minseok gasps at the sudden sensation, Yixing reacting much the same as he falls forward, moaning. “I’m not a southpaw,” his lips twitch, and Minseok wonders how Baekhyun could possibly find his hands _boring_ when they’re so beautiful, so _good_ , wrapped around Minseok’s dick like this and slowly pumping --even without the lube the pre-come is enough to make it wet enough-- and Minseok had never thought a hand could feel _this_ good either. “I’m ambidextrous.”

Yixing cries out, and Minseok has to bite back a groan, already wound up from Baekhyun coming before and even moreso at the sight of Baekhyun using his left hand to jerk Yixing off, smiling sadistically at the way he’s got both of his seniors curling beneath his hands and reduced to gasping messes. The technique isn't even that good, in hindsight, but Baekhyun had been onto something before when he'd said he'd felt overwhelmed, because Minseok's feeling that right now, thinking that even the lightest touch might just send him over the edge.

“Really, guys,” Baekhyun says, faux-calm as Minseok and Yixing just look at each other from across the bed and simultaneously groan, too lost in the sensation to form anything even close to coherency. “This is like rubbing my head and patting my stomach at the same time. Where’s my recognition?”

“So good Baekhyunnie,” Yixing chokes out, Baekhyun’s grin widening as his hand continues sliding up the underside of Minseok’s dick, pretty, thin fingers wrapping the whole way around as he presses his palm against the head. “So fucking _good_ , I’m gonna--”

But not before Minseok does, coming with a sharp gasp in the face of Yixing wrecked beneath Baekhyun’s hand, an overwhelming amount of _feeling_ and sensation washing over him as he mumbles out incoherent praise about either Baekhyun or Yixing or maybe both. Yixing follows not too long after, and Baekhyun’s a little bit better at keeping his come contained now that he has his right hand back and can position just a bit better, pulling both sticky hands away with a grimace.

“Gross,” Baekhyun says, “You’re clean right, hyung?” Baekhyun asks Yixing, and Yixing nods in confusion --they probably should've asked that earlier-- before Baekhyun fucking _licks_ all the come on his hands off, telling Minseok that Baekhyun doesn’t really find it gross at all.

“Now _that’s_ gross,” Yixing mumbles, but Minseok imagines he’s as transfixed in the image of Baekhyun’s fingers in his mouth as much as Minseok is, unable to even tear his eyes away to see if Yixing’s staring either way.

“Sorry hyung,” Baekhyun says once he's done with his semi-disgusting, semi-hot show, turning to Minseok smugly. “But you stained the sheets.”

Minseok looks down, and grunts, falling back onto the bed with a grimace as he reaches over for the box of tissues by the pushed-together beds and wipes the rest of himself off, tucking his dick back into his underwear. Minseok’s still exhausted from yesterday, he realises, and an orgasm does nothing to help him stay awake, limbs feeling like jelly as he nestles further into the sheets.

Yixing sighs, and runs a hand through his hair. “I feel like I should’ve taken it slower than... _that_.”

“Baekhyun has that effect on people,” Minseok yawns, ignoring Baekhyun’s indignant spluttering as he smiles at the memory of Minseok from months ago, who would have probably never allowed a boy like Byun Baekhyun to suck him off before the third date. “His impatience is contagious.”

“Obviously,” Yixing snorts, as Baekhyun just splutters some more and yells things about him being the innocent, unsuspecting _maknae_ with two too-cruel hyungs. Yixing stretches forward, across the bed, and lies so that he’s face-to-face with Minseok on the pillows. “But I can’t say I regret it.”

Minseok grins at that, "Good," and Yixing smiles too, one of the softer, quieter smiles that brings out his dimple. Finally able to, Minseok reaches forward, and traces the dip of it with the tip of his thumb, pressing his lips against it and then moving down, kissing Yixing.

“Gee, Baekhyun, thanks for being a freak genius who can get us off with the physical coordination rivaling that of a supercomputer,” Baekhyun says, squishing into the space between Yixing and Minseok and forcing them to separate, boney elbows digging into every which direction even as they just laugh. “You’re welcome, you know. Don’t sweat it.”

Minseok snorts, and pokes Baekhyun in the side. “You’re full of shit.”

Baekhyun squawks in mock-offense, but not before settling down, wriggling into the pillows. “I think we should make my ambidextrous talents regular occurrence,” he adds conversationally, Yixing raising both eyebrows. “It’ll help me work on my right-hand coordination for pitching and my left for switch hitting,” he makes a pitching motion, even while lying on his back, and it gives Minseok an unpleasant cheekful of bare shoulder, pulling his face back to avoid losing any teeth. “And who knows? I wanna see if I can finger two people at once.”

Yixing just looks at Baekhyun while Minseok bursts into laughter, shoving him and causing the mattress to dip. Blinking incredulously, Yixing says, “Is he always like this?”

“Yeah,” Minseok answers, but smiles even over the top of Baekhyun’s chest as he sees the fond look in Yixing’s eyes, and knows that if he looked into a mirror, he’d see the exact same expression too. “But you get used to it.”

* * *

 


	3. strike three

* * *

 At practice on Monday, Minseok walks out onto the field a little later than the rest --held back from an overtime class-- and Jongdae seems to scrutinise him as soon as he makes it to the mound, blinking.

“What?” Minseok asks, arching an eyebrow, and Jongdae just _squints_.

“Now you, Yixing, _and_ Baekhyun all seem to be playing better,” he pulls a face of disgust. “Coincidence? I think not.”

“Don’t be jealous, Jongdae-ya,” Baekhyun says suddenly, slinging an arm around Jongdae’s shoulders and grinning. “Just because Minseokkie-hyung’s getting twice as much as _you_.”

Junmyeon snorts, rolling his shoulder. “Two times zero is still zero,” he says, and Jongdae shoots him a very scathing look as Junmyeon just grins conspiratorially, Jongdae rolling his eyes. Minseok laughs.

“Threesomes man,” Jongdae sighs, shaking his head. “That’s the life.”

Junmyeon scoffs and this time it’s _Jongdae_ ’s turn to grin, Baekhyun seeming to ignore the interaction altogether, a little too lost to truly understand.

“It’s more than that,” Baekhyun mumbles, but it’s quiet enough that only Minseok hears it, acknowledging it by smiling at Baekhyun, resting his chin on his shoulder briefly.

“Hey, Baekhyunnie,” Yixing starts, catcher’s mask underneath his arm and sweat across his face, panting. “Do you wanna try some right hand pitches, maybe? See if they’re good enough for play?”

“Sure,” Baekhyun says, smiling sweetly, and Yixing grins in return, sending one Minseok’s way too before jogging back to behind the plate, throwing out the hand sign for a fastball to the outer corner as Minseok, Jongdae, and Junmyeon all step back, letting Baekhyun pitch.

“I didn’t even know Yixing played for the other team,” Junmyeon blurts, and Minseok thinks to Yixing’s careful hesitance, the way he’d quietly confessed _after_ that he’d never really done anything with other men, before.

“I don’t think he does,” Jongdae answers, smirking as he looks towards Minseok. “I think it’s just a Baekhyun and Minseok-hyung thing.”

Minseok smiles fondly at that, and it leaves just enough time for him to turn and catch Yixing patting Baekhyun’s butt, Baekhyun squeaking indignantly before grabbing a handful of Yixing’s in return, laughing together in the middle of the diamond.

“Now I _definitely_ want to have a threesome,” Jongdae says, killing the mood as all the affection in Minseok’s chest quickly turns to exasperation. (Or, well, the affection is there all the same, it’s just a little overpowered at the moment.) “Hyung we have _got_ to find somebody--”

“Stop talking,” Junmyeon and Minseok say, at the same time. Jongdae just cackles.

 

 

⚾

 

 

It’s funny to Minseok that he’d ever thought something like _this_ might translate into faults in the machine, when all it seems to do is strengthen the bond between them just that further. As the season continues and Yonsei starts piling up their wins, they’re no longer Yonsei’s shadow duo-aces but Yonsei’s shadow _trio_ -aces, a rare, three of a kind; a catcher and his two in-sync pitchers, one right-handed, one left, a batting lineup unparalleled in the university league.

They don’t overtake Junmyeon’s spot for ace, or anything of the sort, but they do become something of a trump card, a winning hand. Their batting order never falters, and Minseok finds that nothing has even changed that much, from before. He still trusts Yixing and Baekhyun almost more than he trusts himself, it’s just that the only difference now is that he _knows_ they trust him to the same extent too.

“So _this_ is the elusive Lu Han-ssi,” Baekhyun says, reaching over Minseok’s shoulder to peer at the screen and giving Han a camera full of his sweaty, dirt-smudged face, too busy making out with Yixing after practice to have showered, as of yet. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Han frowns curiously, and leans away from the screen slightly, pixelated. “Nice to meet you too,” he manages, and squints into the camera. “Minseokkie's told me absolutely nothing about you, of course.”

Baekhyun laughs loudly at that, grinning, and pinches Minseok’s cheek. “Of course he hasn’t~”

Minseok scowls, “Go shower, brat,” and pushes Baekhyun away, earning himself a wet, sloppy kiss on the cheek as Baekhyun scuttles out of immediate punching range, cackling to himself.

“C’mon hyung,” Baekhyun says, incessant as he tugs on Yixing’s arm. “Wouldn’t want to get Minseokkie-hyung _dirty_.”

Naturally, Baekhyun purrs out dirty like it’s the most sexual word in the Korean dictionary; Minseok just sighs, pressing his fingers against his temple.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Han tells Yixing, giving him a pointed look that Minseok can’t decipher as he says something in Mandarin, Yixing just laughing before pressing a kiss against Minseok’s head and slinking off the bed, replying in turn.

“I can’t believe _that’s_ the guy you replaced me with,” Han says, while Baekhyun asks Yixing  _for future reference, hyung, will you be catching or pitching in bed?_

(Yixing just laughs before saying  _catching, always_. Minseok can  _hear_ the glint in Baekhyun's eyes when he replies with  _good to know,_ the door clicking shut behind Yixing as he follows Baekhyun out.)

Minseok laughs. “He’s not a replacement.” He says, because Baekhyun could never be anything but himself, after all, too inflexible to fit any other role.

“I know,” Han says, smiling, and leans closer into the laptop camera, whispering, “Because I’m irreplaceable~”

“Oh please,” Minseok snorts, ignoring Han’s affronted face. “All I need is an asshole cat that never lets anyone on the bed and eats too much and I’ve practically adopted your other half.”

“So cruel, Minseokkie,” Han says, pouting childishly. “That Byun Baekhyun must be a bad influence on you.”

“Probably,” Minseok agrees easily, and laughs at the way Han clicks his tongue, muttering to himself about corruption in innocent youth. They lapse into an easy conversation after that, even with the screen between them, about Yonsei’s baseball season, and Han’s classes --Minseok’s too, to an extent. Han talks about the girl he’s met in Korean literature, and all about how he’s taken up football. Minseok calls him out on cheating on baseball, and Han just laughs freely, pulling and pushing at each other in a way it feels like they haven’t been able to do _properly_ since Han had left, all those months ago.

Yixing and Baekhyun stumble back into the room still dripping and giggling at each other, Minseok feeling not even a twinge of jealousy at the joke he’s not a part off as he just shifts on the bed, plugging in headphones so that they can’t hear anything incriminating Han might say.

“You know, Minseokkie,” Han starts, and Minseok looks at him, waiting. “You look like you finally worked out that baseball isn’t everything.”

“Ha- _ha_ ,” Minseok lets out sardonically, deadpan, and cautiously tips the screen at an angle so that the camera doesn’t record the way Baekhyun and Yixing have started kissing, right by the edge of the bed, hoping Baekhyun chooses now as the only time in his life to ever stay quiet. It’s not that Minseok had never known that baseball wasn’t _everything_ , only that he’d simply allowed it to be, let himself drown in it up to his neck to forget about everything he’d wanted but couldn’t have, the never-ending impossibility of the future and what it may hold.

Baekhyun and Yixing always say that Minseok thinks too much; Minseok is incredibly inclined to agree.

“You also look happier,” Han adds, cautious almost, biting his lip. “Now that you have two boyfriends.” He smiles a little lopsidedly, and Minseok feels a knot loosen in his chest, slipping out and relaxing even as Han _still_ sees through him. “You always did have such a huge crush on Yixing.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Minseok scoffs, indignant, and as he looks at Yixing and Baekhyun beside him, making out like messy teenagers as per _always_ because they’re the type of people who don’t know how to keep their hands to themselves, he thinks of the word _boyfriends_ and how for once, just this once, it might be the sort of thing the three of them can fit into perfectly.

“But you are, right?” Han asks, tentative. “Happier?”

Minseok tears his eyes away from Yixing and Baekhyun, and looks at his best friend even through the camera and the screen and the nine-hundred kilometres between them, smiling despite himself.

“Yeah,” Minseok relents, and feels _full_. “I think I really am.”

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> i had literally no interest in writing any nsfw content for this (and it shows lmao) but the baseball innuendos and jokes were just too good to pass up  
> 


End file.
